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aUAKERISM 

NOT CHRISTIANITY 



OR, 



REASONS FOR RENOUNCING 



THE 



DOCTRINE OF FRIENDS, 



IN THREE PARTS. 



BY SAMUEL HANSON COX, D. D. 

Pastor of the Laight-street Presbyterian Church; and for twenty years a> 
Member of the Society of Friends. 



Judge not according to the appearance ; but judge righteous judgment. John, 7 : 55. 
Lo, they have rejected the word of the Lord; and what wisdom is in them? Jer. 8 : 9. 
We have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty ; not walking in craftiness, nor handling 

the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to 

every man's conscience in the sight of God. 2 Cor. 4 : 2. 



PRINTED BY D. FANSHAW, 

SOLD BY JONATHAN LEAVITT, 

182 Broadway, New-York: 

AND CROCKER & BREWSTER, 47 WASHINGTON-ST, 
BOSTON. 



1833, 



T*f. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1333, by Samuel Han- 
son- Cos, D. D., in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern 
District of New- York. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



The reader is respectfully requested to consult in his 
Bible the passages to which reference is made in this 
work ; especially those which, after such reference, are 
discussed or expounded without being quoted at large. 

The quotations of latin and other passages, which are 
improvidently too numerous for correct taste, it may be, 
have been on review mostly retained, as the chief objec- 
tion to them is perhaps neutralized by the consideration 
that they are generally translated, or their meaning is 
sufficiently indicated by the scope or connection of the 
argument, which they are designed in some way to sub- 
serve. 

The notes are embodied at the end of the volume, as 
more favorable to method and compactness, if not pre- 
ferable also on the score of utility. 

Many peculiar or singular expressions, and some repe- 
titions of thought, occur incidentally and unavoidably in 
a treatise of this special nature — and often with a relative 
aspect which all readers will not equally discern. The 
table of contents following, has been arranged to serve 
also as a general index. 



Let it be remembered that principles not persons are 
here assailed; the system, not purposely the indivi- 
duals who hold, more than those who deny it. The 
system is viewed mainly in its religious aspect only, 
and contrasted with the system of the scriptures ; and 
thence pronounced to be fundamentally erroneous. 
Let the publication be so regarded and judged — especially 
by those who believe that it is no advantage to be edified 
for eternity on a false foundation. 

What I ask of all christians, in reference to it, 
whoever they may be and wherever they may reside, is 
simply — to do justice, and not desert the Master in regard 
to it! If they will act in the fear of God, and do their 
duty; and defend this work so far as it defends Chris- 
tianity : this is all I ask of them — and this a greater 
than any of us demands. It would indeed grieve me to 
see christians siding with Quakerism against Christianity: 
but, even then, I should have a resource — should have, 
if the ninety-third psalm only was "written for our learn- 
ing, that we through patience and comfort of the scrip- 
tures might have hope." 



errata. 

Last line but one, on page 22 — serene for screen. 

Line 18, on page 29 — curtained for continued. 

Page 112, line 8 — desiring for devising. 

Page 263, line fifth from the bottom — eminently for evidently. 

Page 420, last line but one — secret for secrets. 

&j= Other typographical inaccuracies will be perceived, which it seems im- 
possible wholly to prevent ; especially as a new orthography, half introduced, 
mystifies the operatives at the printing-office, ever and anon, between the Walk- 
man and Websterian style and authority. 



CONTENTS, 



PART FIRST. 

Page. 
Address to certain ministers of 

the gospel, ... 9 

Their probable estimate of Qua- 
kerism, . . . .10 
Sentiments of Dr. Alexander, 11 
Friends a society, not a church, 13 
The author's conversion, . 15 
Reluctance to leave Friends, . 33 
Visit to Elias Hicks, . . 33 
" Dealings" at Philadelphia, . 39 
Decision to profess Christianity, 44 
Dedication to the ministry, . 46 
Disownment by Friends, note 14, 46 
Style of this work, . . 48 
Barclay, the greatest author of 
Friends, . . . .50 

Logic, 52 

Friends averse to classical learn- 
ing, 56 

Uncharitableness, . . .61 
Schism in the body, . . .68 
Believing what we cannot under- 
stand, 80 

Distinction between the mode 

and the fact, . . 81 

George Fox, note 17, . . 90 

Mystery, 91 

1 Tim. 3 : 16, . . .93 

Which party are primitiveFriends, 94 
Journal of George Fox, . . 101 
His miracles, . 104 

Apostates, .... 108 

Rom. 9 : 1-3, note 23, . .Ill 

Motives of the author, . .112 
Predicament of a censurer, . 115 

Sophisms of Friends, . . 118 

The Apostles, . . . .121 
1 Tim. 5 : 24, 25, . . .127 
Inspired Interpretation, . . 131 
Heb. 2:9, . . . .133 

1 Cor. 15 : 22, . . . . 134 
The resurrection of the body, . 135 
Education of Friends, . . 142 
Their excellences, . . , 147 



Harshness, 


. 151 


Sincerity, 


. 160 


Sentiments of Dr. Miller, . 


. 165 


Priest- craft, 


. 167 


Confidence, 


. 175 


Irreligious sages, 


. 178 


Changing one's religion, . 


. 183 



Union of the evangelical ministry, 184 
Sectarianism, .... 190 
Orthodoxy not illiberal, . . 195 
Success — a criterion, . . 197 

Forbearance and evidence, . 198 

Quotation from Dr. Woods, . 199 

Quotation from Dr. Beecher, . 202 
Quakerism, a synopsis, . . 207 
Infidels prefer Quakerism, . . 216 

Trinity, 217 

War, 234 

Washington's opinion, . . 245 
The pacification of the world, . 255 
Conclusion, .... 256 

PART SECOND. 

Mottos, 261 

Principles, .... 263 
Quotation from Dr. Fitch, . . 267 
Positions of truth, . . 268 

Title of this work, what it means, 277 
Definition of Christianity, . . 279 
Radicalism and innovation, . 281 
Inward light, the grand error, . 282 
Incapable of definition, . . 284 
Conscience all the thing at which 

they blindly aim, . . . 286 
The Spirit, . . . 291 

1 John, 4 : 1-3, . . . 292 

Confession of Friends, . . 295 
Scriptures superfluous, . . 298 
Different modes of getting rid of 

them, 299 

Inward-light patriotism, . . 305 
Rom. 8 : 14, . . . .309 
Inspired actions, . . .311 

They make God himself to be — a 

rule of action, , , , 313 



All they truly know comes from 

the Bible, - . . .316 
Inward light among the heathen, 322 
Anecdote, . . . .323 

No salvation but that of Christ, 337 
Practice of the apostles, . . 339 
Their preaching, . . . 346 

Influences of the Spirit, . .347 
Views of Friends, . . . 362 
Quakerism chance-begotten, . 363 
The catholic views not those of 

Friends, . . .366 

Texts not in the Bible, . . 369 

"Winked at," . . .370 

Dr. Waugh, anecdote, . . 372 
Sin of perverting the gospel, . 376 
The scripture vainly quoted to 

support their views, . . 377 
Barclay's great proof-texts ex- 
amined,. .... 379 
Gen. 6:3, . . . . 3S0 
Antediluvians, . . . 354 
Facilities of tradition, . . 394 
Rom. 10 : 8, . . : . 395 
The word of God, . .393 
Justification, .... 404 
Barclay's view, . . . 417 
John, 1:9, . . . .424 
Mistakes of inspiration, . , 432 
Tit. 2:11, . . . . 433 

1 Cor. 12 : 7, . . . 435 
Plenary inspiration of Fox, . 440 
Peculiar testimonies, ; . 445 
Isai. 38: 16, . . . 448 
Isai. 30 : 21, the inward teacher, 449 

2 Pet. 1 : 19, . . . .450 
Fox in Nottingham steeple-house, 451 

454 
454 
460 

462 
466 

463 
472 
477 
450 

487 



Naked " for a sign ;" note 55, 

Friend Bevan, . 

Catacombs of Paris, . 

Sentiments of the General Assem- 
bly of the Presbyterian church, 

What saith the scripture, . 

Quotation from Bishop Mil- 
vaine's Evidences, 

Quotation from Josephus, 

Isai. 8 : 19-22 

Accountability, . . . . 

Barclay's vitiation of 2 Tim. 3 : 
14-17, 



Sealing of the canon, . 490 

Good things in the theatre, . 501 

Conclusion, .... 503 

PART THIRD. 

Mottos, 505 

A sacrament, .... 508 

Baptism, 510 

Apostolic practice, . . . 515 
1 Pet. 3: 21, ... 51S 

1 Cor. 1 : 14-17. . . .619 

Lay baptism, .... 52J 
Ma'tth. 3 : 13-15, . . .522 
Subjects and mode, . . . 527 
Eph. 4:5, . . . .530 

In the name of, . . . . 535 
The Lord's supper, . . . 537 
Friends' view, . . . 560 

1 Cor. 11: 17-34, . . .562 

2 Cor. 5: 18-21, . . .567 
1 Friends,' three kc. . . . 574 

Cardinal's hat, .... 579 

Beauties of nature, . . . 583 
Restraint, .... 586 

Quakerism waning and to wane, 589 
Col. 2 : 20-23, , . . .591 
The Christian ministry, . . 599 
Life-devotement, . . . 603 

How Barclay was converted, 60S 

A call to the ministry, . . 611 
Temporal support, . . . 614 
Matth. 10 : 8, . ... . . 620 

Example of Paul, . . . 625 
Anecdote, .... 628 

Very ancient Friends, . . 631 

The first gratis preacher, . . 633 
Value of the ministry, . . 635 

Female preachers, . . . 636 
The rule, . . . .633 

Their prohibition not partial, lo- 
cal, or temporary, . . 642 

Flattery of the sex, . . . 644 
The proper sphere of female 

usefulness, .... 646 
Saying of Dr. Mason, . .648 

The Bible commended to Chris- 
tians, . . . .651 
Conclusion, .... 653 
Notes, . , . ,655 



THIS VOLUME 

Is particularly and most respectfully addressed to the 
Reverend 

Archibald Alexander, D. D. S. T. P. Theological Seminary, Princeton, N. J. 
Samuel Miller, D. D. do. do. 

Leonard Woods, D. D. S. T. P. do. Andover, Mass, 

James Richards, D. D. S. T. P. do. Auburn, N. York. 

Matthew La Rue Perrine, D. D. do. do. 

Nathaniel W. Taylor, D. D. S. T. P. do. Yale College, Con. 

Lyman Beecher, D. D. S. T. P. Lane do. Cincinnati, Ohio. 

* George A. Baxter, D. D. S. T. P. Union do. Virginia. 

Edward D. Griffin, D. D. President of Williams' College, Massachusetts. 

Heman Humphrey, D. D. do. , Amherst do. do. 

Jeremiah Day, D. D. LL. D. do. Yale do. Connecticut, 

Eliphalet Nott, D. D. do. Union do. N. York. 

Joshua Bates, D. D. do. Middlebury do. Vermont. 

John McDowell, D. D. Pastor of the 1st Pres. Church, Elizabethtown, N. J. 
Nathan S. S. Beman, D. D. Pastor of the 1st Presbyterian Church, Troy, N. Y. 
Ezra Styles Ely, D. D. do. 3rd do. Philadelphia. 

* I insert this name with great pleasure here — though the place was re- 
served for another, now " triumphantly " removed to a happier world ; whom 
I better knew than I have been privileged to know his worthy and honored 
successor ; and whom it suits the feelings of my heart to commemorate, as 
best I may, since I can no more — except that I may strive to imitate and com- 
mend the example of one of the most useful and consistent characters in the 
christian ministry ; one of the most judicious and sound divines, which our 
country and our church had to lose or has been called to mourn. I need 
not write his name. A thousand fleshly tablets and some more durable mon- 
uments, record and will consecrate it in the gratitude of coming ages ! For 

strangers, however, it may be necessary—— 1 refer to the late 

Rev. John Holt Rice, D. D. of Virginia. 



c 

Samuel Fisher. D. D. Paitor of the Presbyterian Church, Patterson, N\ J 
■ Hamas H. Skinner, D. D. Pastor of the 5th Presbyterian Church. Philad 
- Thomas McAuley, D. D. LL. D. do. 10th do. do. 

James M. Mathews. D. D. ::. Boom Dutch Church, N. York, 

and Chancellor of the University of the city of >Tew York. 
lis De Witt, D. D. Af ; :: Paatoi ■::' (he Coll. Dutch Churches, K. Y 
John V ge.'D. D. Pastor of the Boway Presbyterian Church. M Y 

Benjamin B. Wisner. D. D. Sec. of the Am, B. of Com. for F. Missions. 
Benjamin H. Rice. D. D. Assoc. Sec. of the American Home Miss. Society- 
Justin Edwards, D. D. Cor. Sec. of the American Tern. Soc.Andover, Mass, 

* Now lately inaugurated) Theological Seminary. Andover. Mass. 

- NowFastot lately installed) of the Murray-street Presbyterian church, 

N York. 



lAEf nisi 



INTRODUCTION MISCELLANEOUS 



Yea, let God be true, but every man a liar ; as it is written. Rom. 3 : 4, 
And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which 

ARE ABLE TO MAKE THEE WISE UNTO SALVATION THROUGH FAITH WHICH IS 

in Christ Jesus. 2 Tim. 3 ' 15. 

God— spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets. Heb. 1:1. 

For thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name. Psalm 138 : 2. 

For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye re- 
ceived the word or God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the 
word of men, but as it is in truth the word of God, which effectually 
worketh also in you that believe. 1 Thess. 2 : 13. 

And he said unto them, Full well [very piously] ye reject the command- 
ment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition ; making the word of 
God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered : and 
many such like things do ye. Mark, 7 : 9, 13. 

Howbeit, in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the com- 
mandments of men. Mark, 7 : 7. 

And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to 
fail. Luke, 16 : 17. 

Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of 
God : because many false prophets are gone out into the world. 1 John, 4 : 1. 

To the law and to the testimony : if they speak not according to this word, 
it is because there is no light in them. Isaiah, 8 : 20. 

Cursed be he that doelh the work of the Lord deceitfully. Jer. 48 : 10. | 



QUAKERISM NOT CHRISTIANITY: 



OR REASONS FOR 



RENOUNCING THE DOCTRINE OF FRIENDS. 



Fathers and Brethren, 

My veneration for your common character as 
ministers of the gospel of our glorious Lord, in- 
duces the present liberty which I adventure to take 
with your names. From no spirit of ostentation, 
and with no desire to commit you before the public 
for the contents of these pages, do I avail myself of 
the privilege. Nor, much as I esteem the depth and 
the correctness of your theological erudition, do I 
addict myself to call any one of you Father, in a 
sense which may imply a diminution of my own re- 
sponsibility to Christ, or his obscuration as the only 
Bishop of bishops rightfully acknowledged in the 
church. But, as I suppose there is a substantial 
oneness of theological sentiment among you, in 
which I may humbly account myself to participate ; 
as I know you will approve of every reasonable at- 
tempt to vindicate " the holy scriptures " against 
all who contradict or degrade them ; as I am per- 
suaded of your enlightened disapprobation, in com- 
mon with all consistent christians, touching the 

2 



10 

erroneous conceptions of the Society of Friends, 
especially in the matter of the end and office of 
scriptural Revelation; as I know you can |as well 
appreciate my feelings and sentiments in the pre- 
mises, perhaps, as any persons who have never been 
by education faithfully imbued with their peculiar 
mistakes ; as I sincerely value your christian and 
official qualities, arfd am delighted on any occasion, 
as on this, to publish my deep reverence for both ; 
though, you are distributed to different spheres and 
distant scenes of usefulness ; yet, aiding one cause, 
preaching one gospel, having the same Master, the 
same motive, the same glorious and incomparable 
hope, I have judged it proper to prefix your names 
to this Introduction, and formally to address its 
pages, and virtually the entire publication, to your- 
selves : " though it may serve no other end " than 
to evince unity in the greatest and best pursuits, 
the communion of christian brotherhood, and the 
joint inheritance of all the disciples of our Lord and 
Savior Jesus Christ. 

It is certain, moreover, that your concurrence, in 
reprobating the errors of the Quakers, is in the main 
entire. I consider you, therefore, as representing 
the common creed of Christendom, or rather of all 
enlightened protestants, in opposition to the system 
of Friends. I consider you as constituting for the 
time a moral court, before whom I may plead the 
cause of truth, and whose award, whether tacitly or 
formally announced, the christian public will re- 
spect, I doubt not, as well advised, principled and 
unanimous ; for, in such a case, it is not learning 



11 

piety and independence, that wavers or quails to 
human prejudice. 

It will not be doubted that the senjtiments of one 
of you, as cursorily expressed in illustration of a 
kindred subject, may be applied especially to this, 
and fully considered as the sentiments of you all. 
" The other opinion referred to, is that of fanatics 
in general, who, whilst they confess that the scrip- 
tures are divinely inspired, imagine that they are 
possessed of the same inspiration. And some, in 
our own times, have proceeded so far as to boast 
of revelations, by which the scriptures are entirely 
superseded, as a rule of faith and practice. Now, 
the difference between these persons and the holy 
men of God who wrote the scriptures, consists in 
two things. First, the inspired writers could give 
some external evidence, by miracles or prophecy, to 
prove their pretensions ; but enthusiasts can furnish 
no such evidence ; and, secondly, the productions 
of the prophets and apostles were worthy of God, 
and had his impress ; but the discourses of those 
men, except what they repeat from scripture, are 
wholly unworthy their boasted origin, and more re- 
semble the dreams of the sick, or the ravings of the 
insane, than the words of truth and soberness" 1 

Fanatical persons, who " cannot teach, and will 
not learn," abound in the daughter and the mother 
country, and are not confined to any particular com- 
munity of professing or pretending christians. They 
are found in Scotland, Ireland, the United States, 
and throughout the christian world. It would be 
equally fatiguing and unnecessary to write their 






12 



different names. But whatever differences distin- 
guish them, they all agree in the matter of degrading 
the only inspired volume ; and doing this, while 
we leave them to the disposal of the " blessed and 
only Potentate," we can neither join in the worldly 
acclaim that praises their deeds of goodness, nor 
recognise them as members of the church visible of 
our glorious Lord. This, they and the world, their 
sympathetic allies, ought at least to know. If they 
are real christians, they will be so saved at last ; 
and our joy will, we trust, be full, when we witness 
the event in eternity. In time, however, we can 
acknowledge no man without the distinctive signals 
— not of a party, but of Christ. It may be a ques- 
tion how far the imperfection of those signals may 
extend without destroying their competency ; and 
that question we may hesitate to answer, since, ad- 
mitting the defects of all, it is difficult to know with 
how much error, ignorance and eccentricity, piety 
may co-exist. " Nevertheless, the foundation of 
God stand eth sure ; having this seal, the Lord know- 
eth them that are his ; and let every one that nameth 
the name of Christ depart from iniquity.'" Signals 
also are not vitals, however necessary in their place ; 
and when they become vitiated and ambiguous in a 
high degree, even where the vitals possibly exist, 
we do not decide on the latter, when we so far pass 
upon the former as to withhold all christian recog- 
nition and fellowship, from the erratic or disguised 
individuals that carry them. The matter is much 
the same, when all the king's signals are superseded 
by those of private invention and preference, or 



13 

when they are so mangled as really to forego their 
original form, color, and proportion. There are few 
religious radicals, however, who have so boldly re- 
trenched the total livery of the service, as those 
christians of their own sort, who profess to be, 
very properly, not a church, but a " Society ;" Jiot 
brethren, but " Friends ;" and who often, in their 
public statements, and sometimes in the peculiar 
symbols of their faith, think it quite sufficient, where 
we all expect some show at least of divine warrant 
for their singularities, to use, " Friends believe ; the 
society prefer ; it is our custom ; it was the opinion 
of ancient Friends ; we are content to adopt ; it ap- 
pears manifest to us ; it was the practice of early 
Friends ;" and other such phrases innumerable ; 
which, though quite habituated with them, are as 
incapable of convincing any well disciplined mind, 
as they are destitute of all rational evidence. If it 
was the office of faith to create its own objects, and 
a thing became true simply because one believed it, 
the reality of faith would be the criterion of truth ; 
the monstrosities of distempered fancy would be- 
come identical with the realities of godliness ; and 
every insane zealot would create a new universe 
for himself! How melancholy the delusion of enthu- 
siasts! " For he stretcheth out his hand against 
God, and strengthened! himself against the Al- 
mighty. He runneth upon him, even on his neck, 
upon the thick bosses of his bucklers." Job, 15 : 25, 
26. " Let not him that is deceived trust in vanity ; 
for vanity shall be his recompense," 31. But very 
certainly do they know, whose knowledge has cost 



14 

them no labor, intellectual or moral ; and very clear- 
ly do they see, who discern intuitively all mysteries, 
actual, possible, and transcendental ! The conviction 
that comes without evidence, or with that only which 
it makes for itself, is very strong and venturous, as 
well as ordinarily incorrigible. To doubt its demon- 
strations, is profane ! To question its dogmas, is in- 
fidel ! To contradict its hallowed audacity, is abso- 
lutely impious ! And thus their career is sped. But 
will the eternal frame of things give way to them 1 
Alas ! it is impregnable. Its structure is more dura- 
ble, changeless, and excellent, than their inspired 
imaginings perceive. To fall on a certain " stone," 
is to break, not it, but one's self : but to have that 
stone fall on us, is the judicial method of God, in 
" grinding to powder" his adversaries. Luke, 20 : 18. 
Hence they voluntarily and wantonly elaborate their 
own ruin. The moral enactments of God are the 
strongest fixtures in the universe. Jer. 31 : 35, 37 ; 
Matth. 24 : 35. Our temporal and eternal salvation 
must, in every instance, prosper or fail, in accord- 
ance — not in contravention — to the laws of his own 
unalterable constitution. 

The rock must fall, when loosened from on high 
Or — gravitation cease, when you go by 1 

But this is what enthusiasts do not credit, or vision- 
aries see. They seem to think they can certainly 
control or reverse eternal laws, if they are only 
faithful and sincere ! And yet what is their history \ 
Their bones whiten the plain, to warn succeeding 
pilgrims ! Instead of changing the universe, they 



15 

only confound themselves ! Instead of altering the 
truth of God, they wildly sin against his nature and 
his name ! Instead of realizing their selfish antici- 
pations of his favor, their reckless temerity merely 
challenges his wrath ! Of this he has fully warned 
them : ' • Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that com- 
pass yourselves about with sparks : walk in the light 
of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. 
This shall ye have of my hand ; ye shall lie down 
in sorrow/' Isaiah, 50 : 11. 

Ever since the charm of Quakerism, in which I 
had been nurtured, was dissolved by the unmysiical 
verities of the Bible, I have held it my especial 
duty to publish something for the benefit of others, 
that might evince the main articles of difference be- 
tween the two systems. As already intimated, you, 
fathers and brethren, can know experimentally al- 
most nothing of the long troublous agony attendant 
on such a revolution ! In ordinary conversions from 
sin to Christ, it is in general adventitiously neces- 
sary to experience bitterness, anguish, and even 
convulsion of soul ; I say adventitiously, for all this 
results not from the constitution of the gospel, or 
the nature of religion ; but from the embattled ele- 
ments of human pride, ignorance, and obstinacy, 
as they clash with the ethereal armor of the Al- 
mighty. But in a conversion from deep-seated and 
sanctimonious error, there are superadded and ter- 
rible obstacles to be surmounted. Often, especially 
in the first stages of the influence of truth, did 1 
feel the terrific contest ! Often the strength of hal- 
lowed prejudice rose in its vigor to contradict the 



1(5 

plain and "true sayings of God !" Often had I to 
read it again and again, in the page of genuine in- 
spiration, before I could realize the conviction that 
I had been speciously deceived by a thousand tes- 
timonies of a counterfeit inspiration ! So great was 
my jealousy of influence from all Anti- Quaker in- 
structors, that I received the books of their wisdom 
with dread, and laid them aside unperused, that I 
might " search the scriptures" alone. Providence 
had placed me, more than a year before that crisis — 
memorable to me, in a village (Newark, N. Jersey) 
where the Society had not one nominal member, 
with the exception of myself. There I often en- 
countered those who differed from me, and with 
whom I was always prompt to argue in favor of the 
tenets in which I had been educated. That I argued 
uniformly, and with high conviction at least, many 
living witnesses can attest ; and what sorely worst- 
ed me in the argument, generally, was — the apt and 
frequent quotation of texts, of whose scriptural ex- 
istence I was ignorant ! One female disputant, who, 
though not ineloqnent, was fluent, and pointed, 
" and mighty in the scriptures ;" the venerable, 
and now, I trust, glorified 2 Mrs. Douglass, (wife of 
the excellent, and also, I trust, glorified person 3 with 
whom I then boarded,) a lady to whom, under God, 
I am happy in the opportunity of recording my deep 
obligations ; she ever succeeded in disputation, by 
that celestial weaponry with which I was unpro- 
vided, and which she used, with skill and courage, 
against the light within and all its arrogant mani- 
festations. I attribute my conversion to Christianity 



very much instrumentality to her wisdom, benevolence, 
and valor, for the truth ! If I constructed a syllogism 
that appeared to me invincible, and confidently pro- 
pounded the premises for her admission, that I 
might force her to admit the conclusion also, she 
would exclaim, " You are all wrong, my child, in 
premise and conclusion both ; your soul is as blind 
as the inward light can make it ; you are dead in tres- 
passes and sins, destitute of every spark of godli- 
ness, and must be born again, thoroughly changed 
in your thoughts, affections, and reasonings, or you 
will be certainly lost." She would then aptly quote 
some passages from the Bible, which, often like ja- 
velins projected by the force of the warrior, pierced 
my bosom and left me neither peace nor hope. But 
still I neglected the Bible, and ruminated, more than 
I was willing should be known by others, on the pos- 
sibility that inspiration itself, as connected with the 
Quakers, might be wrong ! My father had carefully 
educated me in the principles of Friends ; and I 
may be permitted to say of him, though he lived 
but four days in the present century, that all his in- 
fluence was, so far as I can recollect, (being only in 
my eighth year when he 4 died,) very different from 
that of the generality of Friends ; and this, particu- 
larly, in the grand items of reverence for " the holy 
scriptures ;" a practical and conscientious regard 
for " the Lord's day ;" and boldness for the truth of 
religion among its adversaries ; uniform decision in 
the cause of virtue ; a nice sense of honor ; an un- 
feigned charitableness toward all serious chris- 
tians ; and an inflexible consistency of deportment. 

3 



18 

He was an example of universal temperance ; ten- 
derly humane and self-denying in his offices of be- 
neficence, and distinguished as the friend of the 
black-man in all his degradations. In these re- 
spects his eldest son may be allowed to pay a tear- 
ful, solemn, and most affectionate tribute to his 
memory ! I will add, that he was often pained with 
the scepticism, or, at least, the looseness of principle 
which he observed among his people, and even their 
preachers, in regard to the truths of religion, the 
sanctity of the scriptures, and the obligation of the 
christian Sabbath ! My venerable and sincerely 
honored mother had always, and with tears, follow- 
ed the same course of inculcation ; only that she 
was, more than others of the society with whom I 
have been acquainted, distinguished, at least, for 
some decision of faith in the article of Christ's vica- 
rious death — not that he dies, and rises, and as- 
cends, and intercedes, within us, (as they often say,) 
but that he died " without the gate " of Jerusalem, 
and there made an atonement for the sins of men. 
This / ascribe much to the fact, that her earlier 
education was purely Presbyterian. She was bap- 
tized by the excellent Dr. Sproat 5 of (Arch- street) 
Philadelphia ; and often listened to his instructions 
and exhortations with great interest — remembering 
many of his expressions, especially at the communion 
table, and venerating his devotional piety, sometimes 
not without tears, to the present day ! 

When, therefore, I found Mrs. Douglass 6 so tena- 
cious of the scripture, so disdainful of every pre- 
tender to superiority or even equality with these 



19 

" lively oracles ;" when others also, with whom I 
less frequently conversed, appeared to me possessed 
of thorough knowledge in religion, and really to be- 
lieve the eternal truth of scripture very much as I 
believed the facts of geography or the matters of 
daily life ; when, also, I had frequent opportunities 
of hearing the gospel preached, and that by diffe- 
rent ambassadors of God, and of witnessing the 
administration of the Lord's Supper as well as 
christian baptism ; neither of which I had ever be- 
fore witnessed ! I became uneasy and troubled in 
spirit. I knew not the cause, nor even the nature 
of my unhappiness. Sinners under the special in- 
fluence of the Spirit of God, a revival of religion, I 
had never seen. I knew not that any creature had 
ever felt as I felt, or that there was any excellence 
of nature or promise in such agitation. So pungent 
was the misery, so undefined and unappreciated the 
influence, that I was not even aware of its con- 
nection with religion. Consequently I tried every 
means in my power to dissipate it. I went into 
company, frequented parties, invented sports, com- 
menced the study of the French language with an 
accomplished French gentleman, whose manners 
and society pleased me, but whose principles of 
fatalism, and whose habits of profligacy, shocked 
me ; for, to these things I had not been habituated. 
Finding, at last, that every effort was vain, and 
every resource insipid, I resolved to study more 
diligently, to try to excel in my profession, and to 
pursue this, to the exclusion of every thing else, as 
my supreme good, being then occupied in the office 



20 

of a respectable counsellor, as a student of law. 
Hence I studied laboriously, and with a kind of 
phrensied determination. I separated from asso- 
ciates, and tried to wear the vizor of misanthropy, 
that I might keep all intruders at a distance. Here 
a new misery disturbed me. / could not keep my 
mind, as formerly, on the topics and paragraphs of 
the law book ! Not even the style of Blackstone, 
of which I had always been enamoured, could retain 
my strangely discursive thoughts. I felt a kind of ro- 
mantic curiosity to study the scriptures, and made 
it a virtue to deny myself the pleasure. It appeared 
a random, unprofitable longing of the mind, that re- 
quired, as it received, a resolute coercion. / icill 
study, was my half angry motto. And so I did, la- 
boriously, and to no purpose. I went over a page, 
perhaps ten times, and could not retain one line or 
thought of it. The book appeared like " vanity," 
and the study like " vexation of spirit." Still I per- 
severed ; grew daily more wretched ; and felt that 
I had no friend in the world to whom I could un- 
bosom my sorrows and disburden my soul ! Alas ! 
that " friend that sticketh closer than a brother," 
that " laid down his life for his friends," and who in- 
vites us all to " come unto him," especially when 
" weary and heavy laden," and promises that we 
" shall find rest to our souls ;" who invites us to 
" cast all our care upon him, knowing that he careth 
for us ;" that unequaled friend I little knew, and had 
never proved ! One day, while vacantly meditating 
over a law book, not on its contents, but on the 
atheism of Diderot and other authors, officiously 



loaned me by my French instructor, and which I 
had perused and returned weeks before, it was 
strangely impressed on my mind that I had better 
turn atheist, if I could, for the sake of consistency ; 
for he is consistent, thought I,with himself, who, nev- 
er worshipping God, also denies his existence ; but 
for me there is no such honor. I acknowledge his 
being, and live as if I had ascertained the contrary ! 
I was much agitated, but broke the somnium with my 
motto, / will study. Thus passed away my days for 
many weeks ; till once, when particularly chagrined 
at the lubricity of law in its contact with my efforts 
of mind to retain it, my attention was suddenly fixed 
and charmed with the volume. I felt a relief and a re- 
creation of mind such as had long been unknown. 
My two diverse objects were unexpectedly blended ; 
the desire to investigate scripture and the resolve to 
study seemed to meet at once, and be strangely re- 
conciled. 

This unexpected pleasure was produced by the 
occurrence of a scriptural quotation from Matt. 5 : 
25, " Agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst thou 
art in the way with him." It was in the third vo- 
lume of Blackstone, chap. 20, p. 298, on Pleading. 
The topic respected preliminary measures with the 
parties, with a view to produce a reconciliation and 
prevent a law-suit. The usage, in the opinion of 
that accomplished jurist, was founded on the above 
passage of the gospel ; which he seemed to com- 
mend and revere. His remarks appeared excellent 
and applicable to those who have a controversy to 
settle with God. So I applied them ; and thought, O 



22 

that mine could be settled in the way before it comes 
to bar! O that there could be a liberty of im- 
parlance, or licentia loquendi, to " end the matter 
amicably without further suit, by talking with the 
plaintiff !" In other places 7 also, my author, I re- 
membered, had not infrequently quoted the sayings 
of scripture, particularly the writings of Moses, with 
reverence for the sacred volume and an implied 
panegyric on the Jewish lawgiver. I quickly re- 
verted to several instances, and compared them. 
Here I felt, unknown before, the impression which 
atheistical writers had already made on my mind. 
Moses seemed a mean, deluded Jew ; and I was as- 
tounded that such a writer as Blackstone should so 
compliment his law knowledge, and admit his inspi- 
ration. Reflection, however, corrected the revery ; 
and conscience whispered, you are the weak, mean, 
ignorant, deluded, sinful one! My enjoyment not- 
withstanding was great. I was arrested, entertain- 
ed, absorbed. From an ocean of agitating storms 
and incumbent night, I had suddenly found tran- 
quil moorings, open day, a hospitable welcome, and 
a palatable repast. 

Intus aquse dulces, vivoque sedilia "saxo ; 
Nympharum domus ; hie fessas non vincula naves 
Ulla tenent, unco nonalligat anchora morsu. — Virg. 

Within are waters of sweetness found, 
And couches of living rock surround. 
The home of the nymphs ; where vessels moor, 
Fatigued from the ocean, and rest secure. 
No cables fix their hulls to the strand; 
Nor anchor chains to nethermost land. 
There zephyrs of peace screen the cove ; 
Its breath is summer, its whisper love. 






23 

I was delightfully engrossed ; and finding that to 
proceed with regular study was to lose the attrac- 
tive objects — was to launch out again into the in- 
clement element, and that the margin of the page 
on which my eye then rested, referred me to the 
chapter and verse of the Pentateuch where I might 
also study other words of that ancient lawyer at 
large, I arose with alacrity (being then alone in 
the office) and went to that corner of the library 
where our learned preceptor kept his very valuable 
volumes of theology. There I found a Bible, and 
hastily snatching it, I was soon fixed in the perusal 
of the connection to which I was referred. Thus a 
quotation in a law-book was, in providence, asso- 
ciated with my first or best convictions in religion ; 
it brought me to read the scriptures, and was a link 
in that chain of causes that ultimately bound me in 
a relation not (I trust) to be dissolved, to the salva- 
tion that is in Christ Jesus. "Whoso is wise, and 
will observe these things, even they shall understand 
the loving kindness of the Lord." Psalm 107 : 43. 
Though my religious exercises were perhaps 
marked and interesting, possibly edifying, I have 
hitherto delayed, though often requested and some- 
times importuned, to write their history. My rea- 
sons for this were several and satisfactory. One was, 
that I was new in religion, and always have felt a 
dread of dishonoring that holy name by which I am 
called, and sometimes (not habitually) an awful fear 
of ultimate rejection. This may seem strange to 
some who know that I profess the doctrine of the 
perseverance, or rather the conservation, of all genuine 



24 

believers. It would not. however, seem strange to 
them if they also knew that doctrine ; of which I 
have no doubt at all, and am just as fully assured 
of it, as that these words and a thousand others are 
true : "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, 
and they follow me : and I give unto them eternal 
life ; and they shall never perish, neither shall any 
pluck them out of my hand. My Father, who gave 
them unto me, is greater than all ; and none is able 
to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my 
Father are one." John, 10: 27-30. This decisive 
passage, spoken to malignant Jews, is immediately 
preceded by these words : " But ye believe not ; be- 
cause ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you." 
26. I believe and am sure that such is the doctrine 
of the total Bible, and that there is not one text that 
asserts the contrary, or that does not rather imply 
and teach the infallible perseverance of all real 
christians ; and this, after a very thorough exami- 
nation of all the passages upon which some super- 
ficially rely to prove that chance, or Satan, or some 
other agent, " is able to pluck " the sheep of Christ 
out of his hands. Apostates from the faith might 
have had the experiences of " stony-ground " hear- 
ers, each of whom " dureth for a while, yet hath he 
no root, in himself;" but they were always actuated 
by some bad motive of deceit or sin, and so were al- 
ways graceless. " They went out from us, because 
they were not of us." 1 John, 2 : 19. But what of 
all this 1 Does this ascertain or imply that I am a 
christian, and shall not yet apostatize, and finally 
perish ] Not at all ! There is rational space for self- 






25 

diffidence and self-examination ; yea, there is no 

DOCTRINE THAT SO MUCH INSPIRES BOTH, as that 

which I have just stated and confessed : nor are 
there any religionists whose personal assurance or 
presumption is so daring and void of all humility, as 
some, I might say many, who hold the opposite doc- 
trine ! Yes ! persons who believe, they say, that 
there are no spiritual attainments inconsistent with 
eventual perdition possible to be made in this icorld, 
are the very persons whose confidence of ultimate 
salvation is at once most towering and secure ! 
Having however lived twenty years in the school 
of Christ, and "by the faith of the Son of God, who 
loved me, and gave himself for me," Gal. 2 : 20, and 
being convinced that some history of my change 
ought to accompany this treatise, I do very diffi- 
dently consent to the sketching of its outlines as 
herewith presented, in the hope that the recital may 
benefit some readers, and will injure none. It 
ought however to be remembered that an outline is 
not a full picture ; and that the best finishing of a 
truth-directed sketch is that of a corresponding per- 
sonal experience. Still, experiences are not the 
gospel : they are the mere results of the gospel, in 
its operation, in given circumstances, on the mind 
and heart and life of an individual. 

Without more detail of incidents, dear to my me- 
mory, but of less interest to others, suffice it that I 
now commenced the reading of the scriptures 
alone, and in good earnest. My solemn purpose was 
to explore the sacred book, and know from itself 
what it contained, and what were the internal proofs 

4 



26 

of its divinity. Conviction increased as I proceeded, 
and soon became overpowering. But here several 
things occurred to dissuade me, in vain, from de- 
cision in so plain and so high a course of duty. 
Among others, these two : first, " If you accredit the 
Bible, and adopt it as your highest rule in religion, 
what will become of the inward light V I saw that 
they were two, and rivalrous of each other's claims ; 
and that no Quaker could consistently appropriate 
the Bible according to its own demands as the word 
of God. Again, the awful revolution in all my so- 
cial relationships, which must inevitably ensue, as 
the consequence of " obedience to the heavenly 
vision," by the scriptures manifested to my mind. 
These things, with others that I omit to name, held 
me in a suspense of agony. I was alone, and no 
mortal knew or sympathized with the solemn hour. 
The scenes of a future world ; the sanctions of 
eternity ; the insignificance of time ; the worth of 
the soul ; the absolute necessity of obedience ; the 
solemnity of the crisis ; the supremacy of the divine 
judgment in the case ; and the safety of securing 
the approbation of God ; together with the certain 
conviction that, at all events, there could be no ulti- 
mate danger in adhering "to the law and to the tes- 
timony;" since, whatever might be true, with 
respect to my old doctrine of " the light within," 
must be somewhere indicated in a volume whose 
truth Friends themselves admitted. These con- 
siderations, under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, 
at last prevailed ; my knees bowed, my soul bowed 
with them, for the first time in my life ; I wor- 



27 

shipped, prayed, and solemnly devoted myself to 
the Author of my being and the hope of my soul, 
to be his for ever, to follow Jesus Christ " through 
good report and evil report ;" and by his " strength 
made perfect in weakness," to glorify him in the 
ways of truth, through time and through eternity. 
As soon as I had made this surrendry, conscious as 
I was of its unspeakable solemnity and perfect 
irretrievableness, I was assaulted with a fierce 
temptation, with a succession of " fiery darts of 
the wicked " one, all mainly in this form : You 
have made a vow which you will never keep ; you 
have perjured your soul forever ; you are lost ! You 
be religious ! You are a hypocrite, a fool, a fiend ! 
You will apostatize in less than three weeks, and, 
at last, make your bed in hell — a hateful, ruined 
wretch ! Alas ! thought I, it is certainly true. I 
am wicked, and never felt worse than now that I 
wish to be good ! Here my sins began to disgorge 
themselves to my view. " Sin revived, and I died — 
and the commandment; which was ordained to life, 
I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion 
by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew 
me. Wherefore the law is holy, and the command- 
ment holy, and just, and good." And thus it was 
that sin " became exceeding sinful " in my renewed 
perceptions. For several weeks my situation was 
wretched, indescribably wretched. I had plighted 
my being to serve my Maker ; but this implied that 
I should become qualified for the service that was 
spiritual, and filial, and august. Instead of this, 
it was gloom, sin, and fearful anticipation. T had 



28 

no peace, and hope seemed a phantom of indefinite 
characteristics that continually eluded my grasp. I 
was much alone ; " with other views of men and 
manners now, and others of a life to come." 

Forsaking, and forsaken of all friends, 
I now perceived where earthly pleasure ends ; 
Hard task for one who lately knew no care, 
And harder still, as learnt beneath despair. 

****** 

God's holy word, once trivial in my view, 

Now, by the voice of my experience true, 

Seemed, as it is, the fountain whence alone 

Must spring that hope I longed to make my own. — Cowper. 

One thing that marked this dark hour, or rather 
month, in my memory, was a peculiar conviction of 
sin ! not only of its superlatively evil nature, that 
deserves all that God denounces against it in his 
word, and that I was such a sinner as his truth de- 
scribes ; but that I had sinned unutterably much 
against his gospel, in slighting it, and specially 
against his holy word, in daring to reason against 
it ! The insolence and the insufferable abomination 
of such neglect of " the oracles of God " appeared 
to me, as seen in the light of the goodness and the 
greatness of their adorable Author, astonishingly evil ! 
And I wondered why I was not in hell ; it seemed 
to me that I ought to go there, and that if I had 
any virtue I should approve of the righteousness 
and excellency of such a measure, as what ought to 
be. It seemed impossible that I should ever be 
saved — translated to those halcyon seats of God, 
and admitted to his holy presence for ever ! The de- 



29 

gree of these exercises, depending, in part, as I now 
suppose, upon the singular ardency of my native 
temperament, I do not attempt to describe; and 
would scarcely rehearse to my nearest friend the 
forms of excessive perturbation that harrowed up 
my soul till the fearful conflict was over ! This oc- 
curred one night, on my knees, by my bedside. 
The service of prayer had before seemed at once 
impossible to be, by me, either omitted or perform- 
ed. Then it was easy, it was delightful. How 
long I now continued praising rather than praying 
in this posture, I know not. But this I know, that 
my soul seemed absorbed in the glory of God — the 
chamber luminous with his presence, the universe 
glorious for his sake, while alleluias kept me de- 
lightfully awake until morning ! 

The luminous appearance of the chamber and of 
the bed where I lay, continued from the sight of dis- 
tant objects, which the darkness of a cloudy No- 
vember night (1812) would have rendered invisible 
had there been no intervening drapery to deepen it, 
I have purposely mentioned, and now proceed to ex- 
plain. A sober philosophy, as I then thought, and 
now know, can perfectly resolve it. The state of 
one's mind, in proportion to the intensity of its affec- 
tions, as melancholy or mirthful, as vigorous or lan- 
guid, as imaginative or plodding, imparts its own 
character to surrounding objects ; and often indu- 
ces the sensation that the character is in the objects, 
and not in the mind. Nearly the same sentiment 
is more scientifically given by that great father of 
sound reasoning, Lord Bacon : " Omnes percrp- 



30 

tiones, tarn sensus quam mentis, sint ex analogia 
hominis, non ex analogia universi ; atque intellectus 
humanus instar speculi incequalis ad radios rerum, 
qui suam naturam natures rerum immiscet, eamque 
distorquet et inficitP A little obstinate rationality, 
as Dr. Johnson calls it, kept me then and since 
from the profound or the sublime of religious en- 
thusiasm. Had I yielded to feeling, to imagination, 
and seeming revelation, at a time when the genuine 
influences of the Spirit of God (as I believe) had 
made me happy in him, and thrilled my soul with 
holy ravishment, I might have been a devout mad- 
man, inspired, or any thing else, in my own esteem. 
But the balance of my mind was restored by reflec- 
tion. " The truth and soberness " of Christianity 
induced that reflection, and made me know that I 
ought to exercise my understanding, and "try the 
spirits " in every direction, before I trusted them. 
The case of Col. Gardner 8 I had previously heard or 
read, and it then recurred to me. Were it not, 
thought I, that I happen to know better, I could see 
and tell of prodigies, of angelic apparition and mi- 
raculous glory, as well as others ; and now it seems 
clear to me how the excellent Gardiner was de- 
ceived, and how thousands of religious enthusiasts 
first come by their commission. I ascribe it, under 
God, to the power of his written truth alone, that I 
became not then a disciple of moonshine and ex- 
travagance. The wonder is the greater, that I was 
by education predisposed to it. The spring of the 
affections, or zeal in religion, however genuine, re- 
quires the balance-wheel of sound scriptural in- 



31 

struction to regulate its movements and secure its 
utility. Much am I indebted, whom nature made so 
ardent, and education so moulded to enthusiasm, 
much do I owe to the sober voice of scripture, for 
all the steadiness of faith, the sobriety of character, 
and the uniformity of action, which I have been 
enabled in some degree (yet imperfectly) to exem- 
plify. " Having therefore obtained help of God, I 
continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and 
great, saying none other things than those which 
the prophets and Moses did say should come." Acts, 
26: 22. My soul has often leaped for joy and 
thankfulness that the Great Shepherd hath so led 
and kept me ! — So will he keep for ever all who 
truly trust him. 

I would not here imply that sobriety and mode- 
ration were the early characteristics of my religion. 
I was impetuous ; decisive ; perfectly assured ; ex- 
tatically happy in God ; resolved to confess Jesus 
Christ any where ; anxious to show others the way 
to blessedness ; totally inexperienced ; and not 
properly impressed with the necessity of experi- 
ence in order to usefulness ; supposing I should al- 
ways 'fcwalk in the light, as he is in the light," and 
anticipating no reverses ; ignorant of the wanton 
enmity of men actually cherished against the gos- 
pel ; and often inconsiderate in the way, place, time, 
and style, of addressing them on the matters of re- 
ligion. In principles, however, I have always been 
substantially the same : nor do I know that, since 
the period of spiritual nativity, I have ever had 
one deep deliberate doubt of the truth and excel- 



32 

lence of Christianity, or of the general meaning of 
the scriptures. Reverses however I did experience 
— just as extreme, pungent and complete, as the 
joys that preceded them were high ! My hope left me 
after a few weeks, my joys all dried away, and the 
deepest melancholy of darkness that could be felt 
embowered me. I felt that I had been deluded, 
hypocritical, wild in my rejoicings ; — not that I 
doubted religion ; I doubted only myself! Thus ex- 
tremes and opposites succeeded, till " tribulation 
wrought patience ; and patience, experience ; and 
experience, hope ;" and thus " the God of all grace, 
who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ 
Jesus," is wont to accomplish his people ; " estab- 
lish, strengthen, settle them ; to him be glory and do- 
minion for ever and ever. Amen." 1 Pet. 5 : 10, 11. 
I have since compared my feelings in religion to the 
vibrations of the pendulum of an open clock, whose 
first movements, when energetically started, incline 
almost to cover one hundred and eighty degrees of 
the circle ; but, gradually subsiding from extremes, 
and losing the momentum of extravagance, every 
movement becomes more regular; the deep central 
attraction influences more ; its motions are more or- 
derly and useful ; and at last it assumes that state 
of punctual and measured gravity which it keeps to 
the end of its " appointed time ; " and without which, 
however costly its material, or polished its exterior, 
or comely its proportions, it would be of no utility. 
That I have gained the point of perfect regularity, I 
am very far from asserting ; but that I have held 
my way, in the main, progressive, I do believe, just 



33 

as really as I know that I am still imperfect and 
have much to learn, 

One characteristic of my early and subsequent re- 
ligion, was derived from its connection historically 
with the tenets of Friends. I read the Bible, 
meditated, prayed, conversed, and agonized sponta- 
neously for their salvation. Thousands of times, in 
thought, did I find myself in one of their meetings, 
with the Bible open in my hand, "expounding and 
testifying the kingdom of God, persuading them 
concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses 
and of the prophets, from morning till evening." / 
did not intend to leave the society, if I could with 
peace of conscience continue in it ; though I did in- 
tend, by the grace of God, to follow " the Lamb 
whithersoever he goeth." I accordingly put my- 
self in the way of conversing with the most eminent 
Friends in New-York and its vicinity, from whom I 
received no satisfaction ; and then began, more than 
ever, to suspect that the truth was not in them. 

Some Friends in this city advised that I should 
visit their great oracle on Long-Island for the reso- 
lutioirof my difficulties , and offered to accompany 
me. I accepted the proposal, and went in the sea- 
son of snow a journey of (I suppose) near thirty 
miles. We arrived when he was preaching in a 
Friends' meeting-house : as he had just begun, how- 
ever, we heard almost all of it. It was a declama- 
tory deistical piece of prosing against the resurrec- 
tion of the body, the error that sin is an infinite evil, 
and the abomination of the " divines, as they call 
themselves," whom he charged with teaching all 



34 

these fooleries. He inveighed against the doctrine 
of atonement in the coarsest style, in connection 
with his thesis that sin is no such evil as they say ! 
Among other things that elicited his oracular wrath, 
as I well remember, was this : some of the wicked, 
carnal young Friends had come to meeting that 
morning with bells by twenties on the gears of their 
sleigh-horses ; these were tethered to the trees in the 
immediate grounds of the meeting-house, yet not 
so near as to interrupt the speaker, though their 
sounds were audible through the closed apartments. 
But the preacher took a holy umbrage at the distant 
clatter of the bells. Music of all kinds appeared to 
be his aversion ; 9 and he indulged in a terrible epi- 
sode against the frequent noises of the bells, which 
he said were put there only for pride, and to do as 
others did; they were, he said, wholly from be- 
neath ; for, he had no doubt, it was the spirit of 
the wicked One himself that prompted the dear 
young Friends to such a departure from the prin- 
ciples of the society! If the matter of putting on 
the bells, which has been generally thought neces- 
sary to the safety of passengers, and on that ac- 
count is sometimes required by law, had been 
an infinite evil, he could scarcely have denounced 
it with more inspired zeal or devotional nonsense ! 
We may regard this as an instance of the stoop- 
ing of inspiration, the very bathos of illumined and 
genuine preaching ; which, the privileged hear- 
ers of such prophets know very well, may often be 
witnessed in the communications of the light within. 
Whether Friend Hicks was inspired just then, and 



35 

in what degree and kind precisely, are questions 
which I shall not venture to discuss. Others may 
resolve them. It might, however, assist the grave 
inquirer, to settle another question first : Was the 
prophet Zechariah, in the conclusion of his fourteen 
chapters of thrilling developement, and when speak- 
ing of the perfection and blessedness of the yet 
future and near approaching Millennial State — 
was he inspired X He speaks, without stooping in- 
deed, on the very same topic, in a very different 
style, and to a very uncongenial end ! He seems 
to think that there was no sin, at least intrinsically, 
in the bells of the horses ! He says they shall all be 
consecrated, inscribed, made subsidiary, to the 
glory of Jehovah ! " In that day shall there be upon: 
the bells of the horses, HOLINESS UNTO THE 
LORD." Zech. 14 : 20. 

In the afternoon and evening of that day, I 
was at his house, in close and solemn conference. 
Many, say ten or twenty Friends, were present. 
They sat with their large hats on, all listening to the 
inspiration of their host, and exhibiting an appear- 
ance of solemnity by which I was well nigh over- 
awed — the instinctive and heathenish awe of a 
Quaker ! Aware of the danger, I was resolved to 
resist the evil ; which I did to the astounding of the 
company, by venturing, at the pause of a paragraph, 
respectfully to ask some questions. These he al- 
ways attempted promptly to answer; and always to 
my astonishment and grief. Our main topic was 
the death of Christ. He asserted most boldly that 
Christ made no atonement for our sins on the cross ; 



36 

that God required none but what the tears of the 
penitent could make ; that he died to show us hoic to 
crucify our sinful propensities on the cross of our 
faith: — this queer piece of heretical mysticism is, 
I think, verbally, much the same as his position, so 
far as I can recollect its terms. Other views were all 
in keeping with these ; and when I produced a host 
of quotations of scripture, right in the teeth of his 
assertions, he grew warm, degraded the Book of God, 
and made up for the want of argument by resorting 
to sonorous prophecy. This is one of their very 
common and very wicked arts of evasion. When 
cornered with an argument or crippled with a text, 
they usually (their preachers, I mean) become sud- 
denly inspired ; and exalting their testimony above 
all height, put down all carnal doubts, all naughty 
caviling, all daring liberty of thought, in a summary 
way. This, though the details were worse, was 
the general sum of our interview ; and I returned 
as I went, only more disgusted with Quakerism than 
ever. Still, I loved the man, and resolved to think 
the best of him. Sometimes I thought, he is cer- 
tainly an awful deceiver, an emissary of the pit ; 
and then tried to believe, so recent and infirm were 
my doctrinal impressions, that his ignorance and 
education might properly reconcile the idea of his 
errors with the possibility of his piety. 10 My com- 
panion, too. said all he could in his favor ; but not 
enough to inspire me with any confidence in such a 
guide of souls. 

Thus to write of that journey, and of those who 
entertained me at its end, seems, I acknowledge, 



37 

like ingratitude : for I was received and treated 
every where with the kindest hospitality, attention, 
and fulness. Could these things have compensa- 
ted for the want of greater and better, I had been 
converted by their generous behavior much sooner 
than their arguments. This is one of the worst 
things about them! They lack the evidences of 
vital and genuine religion ; but have so many other 
things resembling its secondary and subordinate at- 
tendants, that they feel safe, and wish others to think 
them so, on account of these other things. Now, I am 
far enough from censuring their hospitable and gene- 
rous mode of entertaining strangers, and should not 
blame them if they were even more given to this no- 
ble conduct than many of them are : but, what I aver 
is, that it is worse than boorishness and inclemency 
when it takes the place and becomes the imposing sub- 
stitute of the religion of the Bible ! It blinds the 
eyes of host and guest ; while spectators at a dis- 
tance "judge according to the appearance" and 
forget "righteous judgment." Hospitality, how- 
ever, is only one of their sectarian virtues ; there is 
a whole system of influence, exactly of the same 
sort, that diffuses itself through all the relations of 
society, and deceives every man who does not truly 
take the Bible as his oracle. I was, therefore, not 
insensible to their kindness, nor ungrateful for it ; 
and what is much more, I was not deceived by it. 
Compare their courtesy and claims with the inspired 
mottos of the title-page of this volume ! A maturer 
observation has confirmed my opinion of the general 
emptiness of their christian pretensions. Many of 



38 

them, especially in the city of Philadelphia, possess 
the social qualities comparatively in polish and per- 
fection. Their families, some of their schools, and 
public institutions, are ordinarily well regulated. 
They have public spirit, fine manners, and good in- 
formation. They live upon a noble and generous 
scale of things ; and are evidently in the career of 
social and intellectual improvement. In many re- 
spects are they excellent and valuable members of 
society ; and in many meliorated and altered from 
primitive Friends. They have refinement, ele- 
gance, and worldly respectability ! In all these mat- 
ters I would delight to do them justice, as I sin- 
cerely respect and even love many of them ; while 
I wish nothing worse than salvation to one of them. 
This they may little appreciate, if they read these 
lines. I however record it, because it is the truth, 
and because others will appreciate it. I know them 
too well to expect the holy magnanimity that loves 
truth even when it condemns us ; and when I re- 
flect on the nature of unbelief and of Christianity, 
of worldly greatness and eternal glory, of the sanc- 
tions of God and the presumptions of men, their 
graceless excellencies appear only the worse, because 
they usurp the place that religion claims ; they ap- 
pear like Anti-Christ in the temple of God, splendid 
and saintly in his professions, so that " the world 
wonders after the beast," but false and hollow in 
principles, because an evident enemy to the cross of 
Christ, in which alone the apostle gloried ; and the 
worse an enemy, because surrounded with all the 
show that indicates a friend. 



39 

On my return I was summoned, both by my 
anxious mother and by the heads of the Pine-street 
meeting, to which I belonged, to Philadelphia. I 
complied ; and while there, (about two weeks,) lost 
no opportunity, as I thought it proper, and as my 
honored mother required of me, to attend all their 
meetings, and to have frequent interviews with their 
chief men, and to put myself sincerely in the way 
of receiving any explanation which might, if pos- 
sible, reconcile it to my conscience to continue my 
birth-right membership. The uniform result of such 
occasions, when calmly compared with the doctrine 
of the Bible, was a deeper conviction of the funda- 
mental errors of the society, and that it was my 
duty "to go forth unto Christ without the camp, 
bearing his reproach : for here have we no conti- 
nuing city, but we seek one to come." Heb. 13 : 13, 
14. Without more detail, I will state the substance 
of an interview which I had with a committee of 
the meeting appointed finally to treat with me. 
They were five or six in number, though at present 
I distinctly recollect but three of them. These were 
two brothers, A. and B. and a third one, say C. 
After sitting through a long pause, which, as they 
accounted it worship, I was unwilling to disturb, I 
thought their embarrassment was manifest, and 
hence that it was my duty to break the silence. 
If, said I, we are all the servants of the same 
God, and the disciples of the same Lord, we need 
not be afraid of each other. I wish you, if you 
please, to commence business, as time is precious, 
and I am prepared. I regard you as the heads of 



40 

the meeting to which I appertain, and hope you are 
Friends not only to each other, but to God and his 
servants. If you can answer my sincere scruples 
against your whole system, I will state them, and 
rejoice in their dissipation. 

A. We did not come here to engage in controversy. 

Neither did I, having no fondness for it, I assure 
you. But do you not " watch for souls as they that 
must give account I" and ought you not, when a 
member deviates, as I appear to you to have done, 
to try to convince and restore him I 

Here some allusion was made to a letter which I 
had written, acknowledging theirs, informing them 
of my intended compliance with their request to see 
them, and describing my visit on Long-Island, with 
the doctrine I had there heard and condemned. I 
found that the letter had affected them unhappily : 
as I kept no copy, I do not remember its expres- 
sions ; while I doubt not that its style was energetic 
and peculiar, I can only vouch for its general cor- 
rectness. I had also felt some of the bitter fruits of 
that letter before my interview with the committe. 
Being in meeting one week-day, just as they were 
about to pass from worship to " business," I chose 
to remain. No one, indeed, but a member, had a 
right to do this ; but I was a member, and was con- 
scious of no bad motives or offence in remaining. 
Here one of their preachers — what is he now? — 
who was of the first in that meeting, rose suddenly 
and beckoned me to arise and follow him. I com- 
plied. As soon as we had passed the door he thus 
accosted me : "I think it improper that thou, who 



41 

hast so ' vilified ' one of our noblest preachers in 
thy letter to the committee, shouldst remain as a 
member of the meeting." I replied, " Am I not a 
member ? Did I transgress any law 1 or has any one 
member a right thus to expel another without law, 
trial, or ceremony V 1 He, however, was inspired and 
inexorable. I thought it useless to return and state 
the matter to the meeting, though I felt that it was 
usurpation and oppression. I just bowed and left 
the imperious zealot. At that time he was very 
high, inspired, and rising as a preacher, — 'a man of 
singular audacity, and, I fear, of wretched princi- 
ples, as he has lately been convicted, by the society 
themselves, of some real or alleged iniquity, for 
which they have degraded and " disowned " him. I 
know of other oracles that once were like the urim 
and thummim of old, and whom, when I doubted 
audibly to my relatives, it was next to impiety and 
treason ! But now where are they 1 God forbid that 
I should glory over them, as I do not ! But let 
Friends consider ! The stars of their heaven have 
been shaken ; their brightest luminaries have fallen ! 
Any one who can recollect the preachers of Phila- 
delphia and its general vicinity for thirty years, 
ought to review the foundations of his faith in their 
holiness and inspiration ! I recollect and could re- 
hearse a multitude of facts and names that speak 
terribly in this relation ! But I forbear. Friends 
there know what I mean ! 

When I saw, in the committee, the effect of the 
letter I had written, I commenced an explanation. 
This was not well received, for it was probably too 

6 



42 

convincing. At last said C. very abruptly, " Samuel, 
dost thou believe the doctrine of predestination!" 
I regretted the question ; for sure I was that neither 
did they understand the subject, nor could I satis- 
factorily explain it to them. Still, as it was a plain 
question of fact, I replied, " I do." " What !" he 
rejoined, "that horrible doctrine ! I am astonished ! 
I would know why thee believes it !" I replied, " Be- 
cause I believe the Bible ; and because that book 
very clearly reveals it." I here referred to Ephe- 
sians, chap. 1, and some other places. It appeared 
evident from his air that he did not anticipate the 
hardihood of so full an answer ; and I thought that 
he asked the question as if to awe me into a denial 
of what he was pleased to predestinate to condem- 
nation. Here the whole circle sat mute, till I turn- 
ed to B. whom I most respected of the company, a 
man seemingly of more honesty, intelligence and 
worth, than I commonly found among them, in argu- 
ment about religion. " Hast thou, friend B. never 
seen," said I, turning to him and using ' the plain 
language,' as I did, respectfully to all of them at 
that time, " hast thou never read that doctrine in 
Paul's Epistles, as well as elsewhere throughout the 
Bible ?" He seemed troubled ; but at last replied, 
" I certainly have seen there what looked very much 
like it indeed !" said I, " And why then didst thou 
not believe it!" said he, " As I never can understand 
it, I always turn over the leaf." 11 I answered, " If 
one cannot at all understand it, why does it seem to 
chafe you so ! If we may turn over the leaf of an 
inspired book that was written on purpose to in- 



43 

struct us in those things which God judges proper 
for us to know, and has therefore fully revealed, 
whenever we happen to dislike a passage, others 
may do the same ; and so the whole Bible will be 
thrown away ! I think this is a solemn and criminal 
slight put upon the Author of the Bible ; and I, for 
one, should be afraid to do it. To me it seems mo- 
desty and piety both, to learn all that he condescends 
to teach, to trust where we possibly may be unable 
to solve, and at all events not to omit any part of 
his communicated wisdom, lest we should find our 
names omitted from ' the Book of Life,' in the last 
day : for he says, He that loveth me not, keepeth not 
"my sayings" 12 

I did indeed the more infer and feel that they 
were ignorant almost of " the first principles of the 
doctrine of Christ ; unstable as water, that could not 
excel ; children, tossed to and fro, and carried about 
by every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men and 
cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to de- 
ceive !'" I felt too the horrible vanity of their vesti- 
mental signals of holiness; hence I pitied them 
with a bleeding heart, but felt divorced from their 
communion, and edified in utter detestation of their 
dreamy tenets. I shook their hands at parting, ex- 
pressed my soul's wishes for their welfare, bade 
them farewell, and abjured them for ever. I went 
home to my mother's, happy and trusting in God, 
but more than ever penetrated with a sense that 
Quakerism was a hollow arid shell, in which neither 
truth nor grace resided, and which should yet be 
dashed and pulverized by the " iron rod " of the 



44 

despised Messiah ! " As the vessels of a potter shall 
they be broken to shivers 1" Rev. 2 : 27. My soul 
was now in that frame which is expressed in the 
sober and excellent words of the 124th Psalm. I saw 
the way of duty clear, and was calmly happy to 
walk in it. The storm was over, the agony gone ! 
I felt it sweet and easy to leave all things for Christ, 
and thought my crosses, crowns ; my losses, gains ; 
my privations, privileges ! 

If on my cheek, for thy dear name, 
Shame and reproaches be, 
All hail reproach, and welcome shame, 
So thou remember me ! 

That evening, I think, or shortly after, my dear, 
tender, and most afflicted mother, seeing that all the 
means and opportunities prescribed for my re-con- 
version only confirmed me, when I meditated and 
read the Bible, in a sense of duty to profess Jesus 
Christ in one of his own churches, now grew incon- 
solable ; and, in a transport of grief, solemnly com- 
manded me, in the name of God, who has required 
" obedience to parents " in his own word, to yield 
my purpose and continue a member of the Society ! 
It was an awful and severe crisis ! I felt its bitter- 
ness, and sympathised with her, whose strong and 
dear affection deserved for her all that a parent could 
deserve of a child ! My sisters and brothers (I think 
all) were present. I paused, and then, with entire 
decision, answered : " We ought to obey God ra- 
ther than man. Whether it be right in the sight oj 
God, to hearken unto you more than unto God, 
judge ye. If any man come to me, and hate not his 



45 

father, and mother, and wife, and children, and 
brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he 
cannot be my disciple. And every one that hath for- 
saken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or 
mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's 
sake, shall receive an hundred-fold, and shall inherit 
everlasting life. No man having put his hand to 
the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom 
of God. (Acts, 4 : 19. 5 : 29. Luke, 14 : 26. 
9 : 62. Matt. 19 : 29. Mark, 10 : 29, 30.) Iintend 
to take stage to-morrow morning, before day, and 
return to Newark, where I expect soon to be baptized 
as a christian confessor, and partake at the com- 
munion-table with them that believe and know the 
truth" 1 Tim. 4 : 3. This purpose I was enabled 
to execute ; and accordingly, on the seventh day 
of March, (Lord's day,) 1813, in the second 13 pres- 
byterian church, Newark, N. Jersey, I professed my 
faith in Christ, was baptized, and did " eat of that 
bread, and drink of that cup," which symbolizes the 
redemption that is in Christ Jesus, " who died for 
us and rose again," according to his own blessed 
commandment, " This do, in remembrance of me." 
I was then in the twentieth year of my age. No 
one whom experience hath not taught, can well ima- 
gine what a struggle, and what a triumph it is, for 
an educated Friend to come to this ! Instances of 
the sort are about as rare in this country as conver- 
sions from the Jews ; and, while almost equally dif- 
ficult and desirable, they are much less appreciated 
by Christians. I did it, however, in the hardihood 
of principle ; conviction of the truth, and faith in 



46 

God, elevated my soul above all considerations be- 
sides them : and while I thank God, in Christ 
Jesus, as " the author and finisher of my faith, 
through whom, strengthening me, I can do all 
things," I record it here to his glory and my own 
ineffable joy, that I have never, for one moment, re- 
gretted that decisive initial measure ! and would no 
more go back to Friends, than I would resign my 
hope and joy in Christ Jesus ! u 

Shortly after this I came to the conclusion that 
God had called me to the work of the ministry. I 
pass over the details of self-examination, and trials 
in this relation, through which I was enabled to pass, 
by the help of God speaking to me in his word, and 
comforting my soul at the throne of grace. I was 
licensed by the presbytery of New- York, in the 
month of October, 1816, to preach the gospel ; and 
ordained to that office by the presbytery of Jersey, 
at Mendham, July 1, 1817. " Then Samuel took 
a stone, and set it between Mispeh and Shen, and 
called the name of it Eben-ezer, saying, Hitherto 
hath the Lord helped us." 1 Sam. 7 : 12. Having 
ever since felt that God hath invested me with an 
office of magnitude, and a commission of responsi- 
bility, I have equally felt that, as a minister of Jesus, 
I was bound to perform a service of point and 
plainness to Friends ; that as I could have no per- 
sonal access to their meetings, and as private con- 
ferences had often proved unavailing, having, from 
experience, very little hope in talking with a Friend, 
as it is mostly impossible to convince him, and having, 
therefore, for a long time, almost totally disconti- 



47 

nued it ; and convinced also, that any written trea- 
tise that should honestly attack the fundamental 
errors of their creed would be, of course, denounced 
by the Society, come from whom it might, and be- 
ing written with whatever care and calmness, I felt 
that there was no alternative. Hence the present 
volume, in which my purpose is " nothing to exte- 
nuate, nor set down aught in malice ;" to fear God 
only, and leave consequences with him. " Yea, and 
if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your 
faith, I joy and rejoice with you all !" I have, at 
different times, received letters from divers Friends, 
preachers and others ; some commanding me to re- 
pent and return to the inward light ; others arguing 
the matter, informing me that I know I am doing 
wrong, remonstrating, warning, prophesying, testi- 
fying ; and all inspired. Some of them are docu- 
ments of heresy worthy of exposure ; and I have 
them all filed and at hand, whenever it may be ne- 
cessary to publish them, when I can do it with 
names and dates entire, and suitable notes and 
illustrations. Some of them I have answered, and 
others, full of rampant infidelity and something 
worse, I have just filed in silence. Some have ut- 
tered divers predictions concerning me, with speci- 
fications of time, which I have already lived to 
confound. Some of their prophecyings used at first 
instinctively to frighten me ; but, in the end, I was 
only strengthened by them, when I saw the time 
arrived in which they were at once due and disho- 
nored. " When a prophet speaketh in the name of 
the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, 



48 

that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, 
bnt the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously ; 
thou shalt not be afraid of him." Deut. 18 : 22. If 
there were no eternity, no heaven, no hell, no Sa- 
vior, and no duty to perform, I would let them 
alone. 

With respect to the style of this treatise, it is, 
perhaps, full of peculiarities, and those who know 
the writer will find them all his own. He is con- 
scious also of their blemishes and faults. All he asks 
of the critic is to consider that the profession, on 
the score of taste, is quite as humble as the per- 
formance. A man should be himself at all times : 
peculiarities, eccentricities^ and even inaccuracies, 
are more tolerable than mimicry, affectation, and 
false consequence ; while, in respect to conscience, 
one ought to remember that his appetite or organs 
are diseased who cannot tolerate even the truth of 
the everlasting gospel, unless modernized, decorated 
with the beauties of artificial rhetoric, and spiced to 
the relish of a sickly taste. Such a reader desires 
not to know the truth, but to get rid of it ; and this 
he covertly attempts under a demand for style. 
There is much of this silly and wicked capricious- 
ness in the world. Its votaries, one would think, 
must perfectly nauseate the Bible ! and retreat po- 
litely for respite in fresco to the profanely bewitch- 
ing genius of Byron, or the brilliant romancing of 
Scott. I would rather be denounced by critics and 
Friends in league, than defer to this graceless ap- 
petite one single hair. 

" The preacher sought," however, " to find out 



49 

acceptable words ;" and if it be ultimately found 
that "that which was written was upright, even 
words of truth," its faultiness in minor respects will 
little disturb me. Some, and perhaps not a few, 
of the peculiarities of style and sentiment, how- 
ever, result from the subject itself, the relations of 
the writer, the manner he prefers to adopt as best 
suited to arrest the thoughts, and the very peculiar 
singularities of the people called Quakers. For 
them, indeed, the work is intended, principally, if 
they will ; secondarily, if they choose ; and for 
others alone, should they universally refuse. " And 
he said unto me, Son of man, go, get thee unto the 
house of Israel, and speak with my words unto 
them. But the house of Israel will not hearken 
unto thee ; for they will not hearken unto me : for 
all the house of Israel are impudent and hard-hearted. 
Behold, I have made thy face strong against their 
faces, and thy forehead strong against their fore- 
heads. As an adamant, harder than flint, have I 
made thy forehead : fear them not, neither be dis- 
mayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious 
house. And thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith 
the Lord God ; he that heareth, let him hear ; and 
he that forbeareth, let him forbear : for they are a 
rebellious house." Ezek. 3 : 4, 7-9, 27. Isaiah, 
41 : 15, 16. Hos. 6 : 5-7. 

One great difficulty which every writer must feel 
on this subject, is polemically to ascertain precisely 
what that is which he opposes. That Quakerism 
is of difficult definition, has been the charge of 
christians against it from the beginning. They 

7 



50 

have no authentic creeds or symbols of faith : and 
those who know them, know that their inspiration 
often differs from itself on many points, according 
to the number of its subjects, multiplied by the 
number of interviews had with them. Prove any 
thing wrong, which one of them has said ; prove 
it to another of them, and you will probably hear the 
convenient answer : " O that is a mistake, it is not 
what Friends believe" If you insist, " What then 
do they believe 1" you will meet some reply of 
ambiguity, evasion, or obscurity, which will convince 
you only of their general ignorance of their own 
tenets, and of the trust of each to the better inspi- 
ration of all the others. In general, they are, as a 
sect, marvellously ignorant of what the scriptures 
teach. Their contradictions have been shown by 
many writers. In order to attain some definite end, 
therefore, I have mainly taken Barclay's Apology ; 
a book which deserves and receives, perhaps, more 
of their common confidence than any other of their 
public documents ; and have assumed it as a stand- 
ard of what Quakerism is, proving the positions 
that I oppose, by quotations from its pages, and va- 
luing it as by far the most respectable performance 
of which the society can boast ; the works of Penn 
IN toto, being postponed to it. In this, if I have been 
studious of convenience to myself, I have been 
equally favorable to them ; for, not only in point 
of style and scholarship, but in approximation 
(though it be but fitful and occasional) to protestant 
orthodoxy, Barclay holds a high, perhaps a solitary, 
pre-eminence. I have read many books and ser- 



51 

mons of Friends, but never one that deserved a com- 
parison with the real respectability of Barclay. In 
many things that he says passingly, he speaks the un- 
doubted truth of God ; and in his Theses Theologicce, 
the fourteenth proposition itself, " concerning the 
power of the civil magistrate, in matters purely re- 
ligious, and pertaining to the conscience," is admi- 
rable, and worthy of the almost unqualified approba- 
tion of christians. He produced his Apology in his 
comparative youth, when in his 27th year, or, at most, 
his 28th, and about nine years after uniting with the 
Society, which occurred in 1667. That he was a man of 
unblemished morals and unsullied fame, there lives 
not one to question. I sincerely respect him ; and con- 
sidering his Roman Catholic training, his Jesuitical 
education on the continent, in connection with his very 
youth, when (in his 18th or 19th year) the imposing 
pretensions of Quakerism first entranced his devout 
imagination, I rather pity than dislike him, as I 
have often and deeply compassionated thousands, 
whose noble minds, like lions taken in the meshes 
of a secret net, were entangled, and subdued, and 
prostrated, by an influence which they could neither 
define nor escape. Let it be remembered, then, that 
I do not intentionally assail the man, when I ex- 
amine and decry his sentiments ; that it really 
grieves me to appear often as if I were opposing 
him ; and when I use freely ichat he hath himself 
given to the public anel posterity, I only avail myself 
of a universal right, which any other man may ex- 
ercise, upon his own responsibility to God, in ani- 
madversion upon what I have written. In his public 



52 

character as a religious teacher, and in this alone, 
do I denounce him and his peers. The great fault 
of Barclay, as a reasoner, is, in my opinion, the 
anti- Baconian style of his reasoning. Though that 
illustrious reformer of the dialectic art, died about 
half a century before the Apology was written ; and 
though his immortal Novum Organum had been ex- 
tant then so many years, it is most probable (slight- 
ed as it was by many of the visionary votaries of Aris- 
totle's theory-making logic) that Barclay had never 
read it! I infer this from the whole style of his 
reasoning, which no one will call Baconian who 
knows how to define the inductive philosophy, and 
has ever read the Apology once through, with his 
thoughts awake. I infer it from his views and de- 
nunciations of logic, as an art by which men " may 
learn twenty tricks and distinctions how to shut out 
the truth," and which only impedes that " secret 
virtue and power " which " ought to be the logic and 
philosophy wherewith a true christian minister 
should be furnished, and for which they need not 
be beholden to Aristotle" And I infer it from the 
fact, that he never once mentions Bacon, or alludes 
to him, (as I can find,) in the whole compass of his 
nearly 600 octavo pages. The logic of Bacon is the 
logic of the New Testament. Its principles are 
opposed to those of the Stagyrite, as they are found- 
ed in universal experience, observation, and fact. 
They coincide with all we know ; they lead to true 
results ; they are universal and impartial ; they de- 
light in evidence alone ; they aid the interests and 
demonstrate the claims of Christianity ; and they just 



53 

as certainly exalt the Bible and explode Quakerism, 
That knowledge is not innate ; that inward light is 
folly ; that any man is liable to err ; that we must 
make inferences from facts, which theory must fol- 
low and not precede, in order to the possession of 
knowledge ; that men come into this world without 
ideas, ignorant as brutes, and derive all they know 
by means of sensation and reflection ; that we must 
guard our premises, and make them sure, before we 
arrive at conclusions ; and that one fact is worth a 
thousand theories, and good against a million : these 
are the main principles of true reasoning, and the 
foundation of the Baconian philosophy — a philoso- 
phy which is not " falsely so called," and the influ- 
ence of which can be deprecated only by the con- 
tracted bigots of some fondled theory, begotten in 
darkness and instinctively trembling at the light. If 
Barclay was disgusted at the philosophy of Aris- 
totle, and denounced it from a general conviction of 
its inutility, I agree with him : from his inference, 
however, from that premise, that we ought to throw 
away all learned logic, I dissent ; and for the follow- 
ing reasons : — 1. It is impossible to have none. Men 
deceive themselves when they think that all philoso- 
phy is bad, and that it is possible to retain our senses 
and forego the use of all. All men think, right or 
wrong ; and they think also according to certain 
laws. To think aloof from all the principles of in- 
tellectual philosophy is impossible. The only ques- 
tion is — whether our philosophy of thought shall be 
favorable or adverse to truth ; whether it shall be 
true or false ? — 2. Barclay himself uses much of 



54 

the wit of the schools, and is much indebted to it 
(as thence Friends are also) in his whole treatise. 
He acknowledges, indeed, that he has used natural 
logic, which he commends, and at the same time 
contra-distinguishes from that of the schools, which 
he totally denounces. But is he right in this 1 Can any 
man suppose that natural logic alone gave him all 
that dialectic subtlety which he certainly evinces, 
and sometimes with success 1 Was it natural or 
scholastic wit that cast so many formal syllogisms 
in mood and figure, and strewed them profusely 
over his pages in such anticipated order 1 Method 
is one of the loftiest and most important divisions 
of artificial logic ; and, at the same time, that in 
which natural logic fails most frequently, while it 
is also a division of which Barclay avails himself 
with considerable address throughout his volume. 
Friends have often boasted of him on this very ac- 
count. He is plainly wrong, then, in scorning all 
artificial logic ; and had he been well acquainted with 
Bacon's regenerated and most excellent system, I 
cannot suppose either that he could have denounced 
it, or that he ever would have written his Apology. 
The whole system of inward light much more ac- 
cords with the fictions of Aristotle than with the 
strict and sober principles of Bacon : with which 
last indeed it cannot consist at all ! What rational 
evidence is there in the decision of inward light ? 
What relation has that light to evidence 1 No more 
than declamation has to argument, or assertion to 
proof. — 3. Jesus Christ evinces the power of correct 
reasoning in all his preaching. The connection be- 



55 

tween premise and conclusion ; the necessity of 
evidence to thought, to obligation, and moral ac- 
tion ; the power of the dilemma ; the admissions of 
an opponent ; the misery of sophism ; the force 
of implication and inference ; the ad hominem 
style ; the reductio ad absurdum ; the sorites ; and 
almost every other manner of argumentation, is 
frequently exemplified in his reasonings. The 
same is true of all the sacred writers ; especially 
of Paul, who was, at once, probably, the greatest 
reasoner, and the most useful man, that ever ap- 
peared as the inspired ambassador of Christ. My 
last reason is — 4. That nobody actually believes the 
statement, (though some may suppose they do,) that 
well cultivated scholastic logic is of no use in religion, 
and not a desirable and responsible gift of provi- 
dence. False learning, and the abuse of true, are 
both bad ; but surely this does not impair the excel- 
lency and usefulness of true learning ! A man's 
spirituality, just here, may be wonderfully influenced 
— unknown perhaps to himself — by envy ! He may 
have no learning ; he may feel their superiority 
who are not in his predicament ; he may be unable, 
or unwilling, or without opportunity to study ; and 
therefore he may set himself to disparage what 
he does not possess, and would— from no good 
motive possibly — very gladly attain, could "the 
desire of the slothful," or the caprice of the vain, 
or the resources of the wealthy, procure it for him. 
Facts speak on this point. How much is the cause 
of the Reformation indebted to learning l Almost as 
much as learning has been also indebted to it ! Look 



56 

at the map of the world. What but learning ever 
translated the Bible into our mother tongue, or any 
other tongue, since " Babel was confounded 1" What 
a prodigious effect on all the interests of society has 
the art of printing exerted ! Look at the Friends 
themselves. The writings of Barclay, Penn, and 
others, who were comparatively learned men, have 
procured for them all the theological respectability, 
or the most of it, which they have ever attained : and 
of this they are so conscious, that they continually 
refer to those writers for a vindication of their tenets. 
The sum is this : no man ever yet sincerely or con- 
sistently denounced true learning, who did himself 
possess it ; and they who possess it not, are no pro- 
per judges in the case. " He that answereth a majter 
before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him." 
Prov. 18 : 13. The book of Proverbs is Baconian, 
to a wonder ! 

But there is one feature of the system of Friends 
which deserves a recognition here — its inimical re- 
gard to classical and scientific learning. I do not 
say that all Friends are thus hostile, or that they 
are all alike hostile to liberal learning ; but / charge 
this hostility on the system. That such is its cha- 
racter, appears from the denunciation, the indis- 
criminate proscription of Barclay ; and that not in 
a few places of his book. It appears in the general 
hostility of Friends to all colleges and seminaries 
where the elevated branches are thoroughly taught. 
Not one young Friend out of five hundred, even in 
this free country, ever obtains a liberal education, 
in fact or in name ; certainly never becomes gradu- 



57 

ated in the arts at any chartered institution ; and 
where an instance occurs, it is always attended with 
special difficulties. They have no college of liberal 
science in the world! Some, I know, of the sus- 
pected worldly sort in Philadelphia, have proposed, 
and would have forwarded so excellent an object ; 
but they were always awed into despondency by 
the unlettered, all-knowing light within. And in 
this, their obsequiousness was quite consistent ; 
for, if schools, academies and universities are all in 
their nature wrong, and as such forbidden of God, 
it is certainly right to desist totally and at once from 
the prosecution of their cause ! Incidental evils in- 
deed they will always include ; but the system is 
not chargeable with these, unless in its own nature 
it approves and fosters them. There will always, 
perhaps, be hypocrites at the communion table ; but 
Christianity does not make them : and the purest 
ministry of the gospel will often become " a savor 
of death unto death ;" but sinners themselves, and 
not such a ministry, are to blame for the conse- 
quence. And so the best organized system of in- 
tellectual education that the world has ever seen, 
has often presented the appalling spectacle of pro- 
fligate and wicked students perverting its privileges. 
But what of that \ Shall we burn our colleges I Why 
not our primary school-houses too 1 What benefi- 
cent institution, what bounty of the blessed God is 
not perverted and abused in this naughty world 1 I 
return to the fact, and ask the friends of order, 
of religion, and of man, dispassionately to consider, 
at their leisure, the three following questions : 



58 

1. Is Quakerism friendly to the cultivation and 
diffusion of scientific knowledge ? 2. If not, is it con- 
genial any more with Christianity than with the real 
interests of 'the nation or the icorldl 5. When would 
the whole world be converted to Christ upon their 
principles, or by their influence ? 

One painful consideration to any person who 
wishes and who endeavors to subserve the conver- 
sion of Friends to Christianity, is their characteristic 
aversion to investigate. One special reason of 
this, beside others, not a few derived, in common 
with the hinderances of other men, from the " first 
Adam, " results from the genius of their religion. 
To investigate, is to think, examine, analyze ; and 
in religion it is to " search the scriptures daily ;" 
to " ask wisdom "" in prayer to God ; to weigh evi- 
dence ; to respect the opinion of others, so far as 
to " consider " what they say ; to admit the possi- 
bility of one's own error on any subject ; to depre- 
cate and resist the dark tyranny of prejudice; to 
deny infallibility to men universally ; to surmount 
the dictation of friends just as sincerely as that of 
enemies ; to feel the incomparable value of truth, 
and to realize the obligation of the mandate, " buy 
the truth, and sell it not ;" to feel and to own one's 
personal fallibility ; to study the force and to sift 
the correctness of educational principles; to ply all 
proper means of right knowledge with candor and 
benevolence ; to grasp known truth, after examina- 
tion, with courage and tenacity ; to habituate the 
exercise of investigation ; to " incline one's ear unto 
wisdom, and apply the heart to understanding ; yea, 



59 

to cry after knowledge, and lift up the voice for 
understanding ; to seek her as silver, and search for 
her as for hid treasures ; in order to understand 
the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God." 
Prov. 2 : 2-5. True, there are some minds com- 
paratively incapable of investigation. They look 
back, and not forward, and they can see nothing 
out of the wake of their own random sailing. They 
perceive not the other side of the question. With 
them to investigate is indevotion, is danger, is 
scepticism — so incredulous are they of the ultimate 
truth of what they believe. With them abstraction 
is distraction ; the value of principles of thought is 
inscrutable ; and degrees of evidence are a profane 
supposition. What they believe they know, though 
they cannot prove it ; what they hold, they are sure 
is right, though they have no other evidence ; and 
what their conscience approves, they are not afraid 
to venture, because they are sincere. " The slug- 
gard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men 
that can render a reason." Prov. 26 : 16. " Seest 
thou a man wise in his own conceit I There 
is more hope of a fool than of him. 12." " My son, 
give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my 
ways." 23 : 26. " Brethren, be not children in un- 
derstanding : howbeit, in malice be ye children, 

but IN UNDERSTANDING BE MEN." 1 Cor. 14 I 20. 

There are minds, too, so weak and insipid in their 
very structure, that, wherever is their place in " the 
body," it is plain that they were never intended for 
" the eye ;" although the perversion of their native 
training, mixed with the dregs of their own vanity, 



60 

may possibly intoxicate them with the notion of their 
competency to become leaders in religion. Such 
minds as these are easily brought to feel the flame 
of inspiration, and to surrender to all the phantasies 
of that serene delirium. But with respect to greater 
minds, those capacitated for thought and investi- 
gation, what are we, in consistency, to expect from 
them, after they have imbibed from infancy the 
sentiment of a universal inward light, paramount 
to the scriptures, which every man is supremely 
bound to audit and to follow, " through faith in its 
effectual operation ?" Hence is it that I aver their 
intractableness, and their consistent aversion to 
investigate, as resulting from the very genius of 
their religion. Their master spirits often, I might 
say habitually, resist the tendencies of rational 
thought, that they may get still, suppress "the mo- 
tions and activity of the creature," and come to 
know a unity with the life, the power, and spirit 
within them. This is their religion. It was the 
very soul of the scheme and conduct of George 
Fox. When I was yet recent in the faith of 
Christ, and before I was " disowned ;" being in 
company with some eminent preachers of the so- 
ciety at a public inn, and conversing very mode- 
rately, but with decision, on the topics of difference ; 
one of the preachers suddenly rose, beckoned 
me solemnly into an adjoining apartment, and then 
commenced his inspired advice substantially in this 
sort : " Samuel, thy mind is too active ; if thee 
wants peace, I can tell thee how to find it : get still, 
get still! and thou shalt come to know the hidden 



61 

wisdom in the quiet of all flesh. I tell thee, my 
dear young friend, get still" I thanked him for his 
intentioned kindness ; but told him that was a very 
inferior answer to the question, What must I do to 
be saved? compared with the inspired answer con- 
tained in the scriptures. Acts, 16 : 31. I told him 
I felt bound in conscience toward God, to prove 
all things ; and that I deeply doubted the peace of 
which he spoke, as I desired none that could not 
look at the truth without blenching, and grow 
stronger and purer by a thorough investigation of 
the doctrine of Christ. I treated him kindly, and 
felt what I seemed. He however was offended, 
as I suppose, because I could not follow his advice, 
since I felt obligated to investigate : — I suppose 
this from several ungrateful and unreciprocated indi- 
cations ; especially this, that though I occasionally 
see him in the city of his residence, and have to- 
ward him, as the Lord knows, feelings of kind- 
ness alone, he never knows me ! He walks by me 
in the street, or rides in wealthy dignity ; and seems 
to say as we pass each other, "he was fairly warned ; 
but he wilfully refused — to get still !" Alas ! my 
memory and conscience both confirm the charge. 
May his mind never respond affirmatively to a more 
serious one! 



Uncharitableness will probably be charged to my 
account. But (1) does it come with a good grace 
from Friends 1 From those who in their writings, 
their discipline, their preaching, and their common 
talk, denounce all the christian ministry, of what- 
ever denomination, as "hirelings'!" This word, 



62 

that abounds in their use, occurs in the New-Testa- 
ment only in one chapter and one connection ; 
(John, 10 ;) and means a false teacher of religion, who 
loves the wages more than work ; who loves the 
wages supremely, and "careth not for the sheep." 
It is there used three times only. In their stereo- 
typed calumny, they unchurch and eternally undo 
every minister of the gospel who receives a tempo- 
ral support for his spiritual services ; though his 
whole powers and time and affections are devoted 
to the work of the ministry alone ; — for, an " hire- 
ling," that deserves the name, is certainly, as Judas, 
the prince of reprobates! How happens it that 
Friends have obtained, even by immemorial prece- 
dent, a license from public sentiment on this ar- 
ticle 1 If what they allege is true, Tillotson, Watts — 
some of whose hymns they teach their children, 
and Blair, and millions beside of the noblest stars 
in the ecclesiastical firmament, are note " lifting up 
their eyes in hell, being in torments !" And are they 
the immaculate exempts that may cry out "uncha- 
ritableness," when a minister of Jesus Christ 
undertakes to expose their errors and tell them the 
truth in its plainness, " according to the command- 
ment of the everlasting God," and as it is re- 
vealed " by the scriptures of the prophets — made 
known to all nations for the obedience of faith V 9 
Rom. 16: 26. 

There is one other fact worthy of notice, (and I 
could easily summon more,) in illustration of their 
claim to decry uncharitableness : Their polity, both 
in its organization and its known and frequent 



63 

administration, positively excommunicates, collec- 
tively and individually, all the true churches of Jesus 
Christ in Christendom, and every personal professor 
of the faith of Jesus, who belongs not to their so- 
ciety ! Proof — If one of their members of either 
sex, dares to contract marriage with any other per- 
son, however excellent and however exemplary in 
every christian virtue, they are immediately under the 
necessity to make a formal (written — if I recollect 
right) declaration of their repentance, as if they had 
committed a grievous sin ; or — would you believe 
it, fathers and brethren I — be excommunicated, or 
publicly "disowned," by the operation of "the good 
order used amongst them!" This, resulting ne- 
cessarily from the genius of Quakerism, is a fixed 
and immutable statute, in England, Ireland, America, 
and elsewhere ; and has been since the originof the 
society. If they do not know it, I would tell them — 
that it is a pestilent limb of antichrist ; a piece of 
covert popery ; a legislation contrary to the certain 
constitution of God ; a principle of organized and 
iniquitous misanthropy — and in every view criminal, 
tyrannous, and wrong ! No community on earth have 
a right to make such an ordinance. It is proof that 
they are a " society, " and not a church of Jesus Christ. 
I, of course, speak this merely from a sense of right, 
having no possible interest in the subject but what 
I avow. But is it not a crying shame, a disgrace 
to the age, and a monstrosity in christian society 1 
It often leads, as I know, to hypocrisy, equivocation, 
and all the sly arts of evasion ; while its repudiated 
victims are many. Suppose, for example, that a 



64 



character as exalted and stainless as Dr. Chalmers, 
should contract an alliance, " honorable in all," with 
a lady of worth belonging to the society ; and 
suppose that, when waited on " under dealings," 
she should find it in her heart rather to bless the 
God of Rebecca, for the Isaac of her pure affections, 
than to repent of the donation and the blessing 
together, that she might retain the incalculable ad- 
vantage of " her birth-right " among such a people : 
why, the consequence is infallible ! But this is not 
all. The register of her misdemeanor and her reso- 
lute impenitence, after being read to all the assem- 
bled meetings, (men's and women's apart,) is per- 
petuated to coming ages, with the added oppro- 
brium — " by the assistance of a hireling minister ;" 
or words very like these ipsissima of my present 
recollection. The result however is the same, as 
it respects " disownment," if the marriage is con- 
summated by a magistrate, or in any other way of 
" the world's people." Their policy in this is ob- 
vious : it is to eternize their sectarianism — to di- 
vorce their members from human nature, and to 
excommunicate the species, in order to maintain their 
resolute peculiarities ! Odisse humanum genus Z 15 
Is Quakerism Christianity 1 One final cause of the 
interdict of God, in respect to marriage within cer- 
tain degrees of consanguinity and affinity, is doubt- 
less to destroy, or rather to prevent, the clanishness 
of families ; to interlace the centres and connect the 
circles of social life in one vast and catholic attrac- 
tion ; and to make every one " honor all men, " and 
feel that every individual that has a soul, and for whom 






65 

Christ died, and who belongs to our common species, 
is an object of obligatory and reciprocal benevo- 
lence. Let me say again, I am not angry at them. 
It is a desire of their salvation that leads me to hold 
to their vision the mirror of truth. If the reflection 
is ungrateful, the rays of incidence come from them- 
selves. I only wish to demonstrate to every reader 
that their talk about charity is not so congruous ; 
and to remind them of the proverb applicable to 
those who "live in glass houses." Nor is the as- 
sumption here gratuitous. There is no people in 
the world more sensitive than they to the esteem of 
men. They are sensitive also to the importance of 
charity, and even clamorous for its exercise — when 
they are to be the objects of it. Their vehemence 
is prodigiously reduced in those relations where they 
are justly entitled to become the subjects of it. Many 
of them speak as if the obligations of charity were 
not reciprocal, and as if the lines of charity autho- 
rized its movement only in one direction — I need 
not say toward themselves. At its best, the charity 
of a Quaker for other denominations is mere feel- 
ing at the time, ordinarily one of the most capri- 
cious, flitting, and gossamer productions in the 
world. A soul without principles is about as strong 
and steady in moral action, as in ordinary life would 
be a body without bones. (2) They ought to 
remember, if they ever knew, the nature of charity. 
With the mere word, I confess myself on no very 
amicable terms ; and wish sincerely it had never 
appeared in our English Bible. The original word 
wy<mv\ is rendered love very often, and should have 

o 



66 

been so rendered in every instance. It would then 
have prevented a vast amount of dotage, mistake, 
and lawless affectation. Love means, benevo- 
lence, " good will to men." And if I have outraged 
this pure celestial principle, how was it done 1 I 
have been satirical, ironical, sarcastic, possibly. 
True ; and I wish I could have done it all with more 
address ; " wise as a serpent and harmless as a 
dove." I wish that I could have maintained more 
palpably throughout the distinction between the 
persons of Friends and their individual interests 
on the one hand, and their corporate and public 
rrors on the other. But may I not appeal to them 
and to all, in my turn, for honesty, for justice 1 Will 
they not credit me when I assure them that I aimed 
to honor the distinction adequately, and that it is 
against their errors alone that I have desired to be 
bold and even severe 1 

If they ask why I have been willing to make them 
appear ridiculous, and why, on such a serious sub- 
ject, I have been so willing to excite sometimes the 
laughter of the reader 1 I answer, mainly for two rea- 
sons : first, because it appears to me that some of their 
chief errors are so antiquated, and at the same time 
so venerable in their own view, and incorrigible by 
ordinary measures, that it was like Elijah at Mount 
Carmel, when he demonstrated the ridiculous but 
most devout worship of the idolaters to be what it was, 
by holding their folly obvious to the multitude, in a 
vein of the most biting and acrimonious irony of 
which we have any example ; and second, because 
the genius of their system, by inducing a spurious 



67 

solemnity on every religious subject, puts the whole 
matter ordinarily out of the reach of men, who ought 
to have religion familiarized to their thoughts, and in- 
terwoven with their daily associations, and engrafted 
upon all the objects of their converse in life ; instead 
of being shrouded in unapproachable solemnity and 
inscrutable mystery. I have therefore endeavored so 
to write, that if, through the infinite grace of Jesus 
Christ, we should meet at last in a better world, 
where prejudice shall be done away for ever, my 
charity will be accredited ; my motives unim- 
peached ; my reasons vindicated even for the al- 
leged severities. Let them remember that charity, 
the name and the thing, is a matter among the most 
abused in our language, "the sport of mere pre- 
tenders to the name," and the very antipodes often 
of christian benevolence. This " rejoiceth in the 
truth ;" and "hateth every false way ;" and will in 
any wise maintain pure the religion of heaven. I 
suppose it charity to abet the truth ; to expose and 
frustrate, by rational argument and moral means, 
all the errors that would corrupt it ; to become ag- 
gressively a controvertist or even a champion for its 
sake ; and in valor to " contend earnestly for the 
faith once delivered" — mark, not delivered mil- 
lions of times, or oftener, but ONCE delivered— 
" to the saints." " If there come any unto you, 
and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into 
your house, neither bid him God speed : for, he 
that biddcth him God speed, is partaker of his 
evil deeds." This is charity of a genuine stamp ; 
charity coined in the mint of heaven, and having 



68 

"the image and superscription of God." Of what 
kind of love becomes it the destruction, practically 
to honor such of his commandments 1 That kind 
that postpones the first table of the law to the second ; 
talks well of both, and obeys neither ; delights 
in those imaginings which truth denounces, and 
courts darkness rather than light, as the atmosphere 
of all its flourishing ! It is charity to — self, dear self, 
partial, evil, deceitful self! And is not the selfishness 
of the original the reason why the picture is denied I 
It may be proper here to view the subject in 
another aspect. There is a great schism in the 
body. Friends are divided, or rather subdivided 
into two distinct sects, at least in this countiy ; the 
Orthodox and the Hicksites. I have reason to be- 
lieve that the letter already referred to, written by 
myself to the committee at Philadelphia, A. D. 
1813, had some influence, in the providence of God, 
in producing the event. It was the first bill of 
attainder that ever was filed in that city, I ween, 
against the oraculous Simon of the Samaritans ; 
who had widely "bewitched the people, giving out 
that himself was some great one : to whom they 
all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, 
This man is the great power of God. And to him 
they had regard, because that of long time he had 
bewitched them with sorceries." However that be, 
I wish to remark on the fact : 1. That it is only a 
change in the progress of the times and the increase 
of evangelical light, ichich requires and portends other 
revolutions. It has broke the charm of infallibility. 
in which the semi-papacy of the seventeenth century 



69 

(when other monstrosities were " spouted from the 
crater of a revolutionary volcano ") may be identified 
in Quakerism. That human infallibility must exist 
somewhere on earth, our ancestors held it sacri- 
legious to doubt. The Pope and Fox agreed in 
the general sentiment; and each of them claimed 
it as his own : only one challenged it by virtue of 
St. Peter's investiture, the other as the result of 
interior illumination. Hence the dogmatizing of 
Quakerism is all " anointed " with infallibility. 
What could inspiration morel But the charm is 
broken. Altar is reared against altar; and oppo- 
site batteries, equally infallible, pour their polemical 
vollies into each other, with new methods of gun- 
nery and fortification. I think this is well, rather 
than the opposite. It may yet open the eyes of both 
belligerents to the real light. " A living dog is 
better than a dead lion." Any thing but stagnation, 
" silent meetings," and a sleepy congregation — 
telling how T " refreshed " they felt ! Concussions in 
the atmosphere, with the glare of lightning, and the 
roll of thunder, and the terror of all terrestrial con- 
sciousness, may still be necessary to purity, health, 
and even life. " Some indeed preach Christ even of 
envy and strife : and some also of good will. What 
then? Notwithstanding, every way, whether in pre- 
tence or in truth, Christ is preached ; and I therein 
do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice." I allude mainly to 
the idea of action and inquiry on the subject of reli- 
gion, as better than dotage and supineness — not that 
T think the preaching of either party is the pure truth 
of the gospel, or that either properly "preach Christ" 



70 

at all. I am convinced of the contrary. Still, there 
is no hope of those who take all for granted " even 
as they are led," and who examine nothing. Ex- 
citement is not religion — but it is ordinarily indis- 
pensable to it. This may be the very means se- 
lected by that admirable Economist who is " won- 
derful in counsel and excellent in working," to rouse 
them from the lethargy of ages ; and necessitate 
their practical searching, so as to bring them, it may 
be, savingly to know the " truth and soberness " of 
the gospel. God is a real and glorious, though an 
invisible and little accredited agent, in all these 
teeming wonders of his sovereignty. O let us pray 
more, that his prospering breath may vivify, through 
the truth, an awakened and confounded population ! 
2. We may be in danger of thinking too much of 
it ; of dishonoring too much in comparison the one 
party, and of crediting the other prematurely for 
attainments they have yet to make ; and so of in- 
juring both parties, and really retarding their com- 
mon proficiency. I have something gravely to 
allege against those called orthodox — only by con- 
trast with notions the most infidel, and sordid, and 
impudent in error; something, on account of which, 
while it remains, I feel pressed, in judgment and in 
conscience too, to deny to them boldly a recognition 
of christian character. I cannot at all fellowship 
them, so corrupt is their confession, and so equivo- 
cal their " professed subjection unto the gospel of 
Christ :" I say again, in the ear of earth and the 
eye of heaven, that I cannot do it ; nor do I think, 
most excellent sirs, that one of you, or those whom 



71 

you represent and influence, ought to do it. Sup- 
pose they are, by possibility, genuine christians at 
heart ; I still think that they are so exceedingly de- 
fective that God has a terrible controversy with 
them, in which we are in danger of taking side 
against him, by a course of fraternizing and con- 
gratulation, while they remain as they are. He 
neither requires us to search the heart, nor to admit 
a silly charity against evidence or without it. The 
defect to which I allude is pervading and universal. 
It is the stain, and, in my christian judgment, the 
damning fault of all their publications — the very 
best of them. I call them " orthodox" only by usage, 
and for distinction, and always with reluctance, 
while I witness that accursed leaven in all their pub- 
lished symbols. It is a qualifier downward of all 
their good promisings ; it is the obscuration, if not 
the extinguisher, of all their heavenly light ; it is 
the goal, and the limit, and the barrier, of their 
christian advancement ; and it is an error which no 
one of you would allow, among any other people, 
to the man whom you would feel warranted to fel- 
lowship as a christain brother. It is this : perti- 
naciously REFUSING TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE PARA- 
MOUNT AUTHORITY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, AS 
OUR RULE OF FAITH AND PRACTICE ; AND REFUSING, 
WITH MELANCHOLY AND EQUAL CONSISTENCY TO 
FOLLOW THE EXAMPLE OF JESUS CHRIST IN CALLING 

them " THE WORD OF GOD." 

Where got they all their honorable orthodoxy, but 
from that book of books which they dare to call 
" a secondary rule V 9 How know they one grand 



72 

truth, how can they prove it in controversy, but by 
resort to the scripture, that " cannot be broken 1" 
They quote Barclay, in what he says with cardinal 
heresy, that the scriptures " are not to be esteemed 
the adequate, primary rule of faith and manners. 
Yet, because they give a true and faithful testimony 
of the first foundation, they are and may be esteemed 
a secondary rule, subordinate to the Spirit, from 
which they have all their excellency and certainty ; 
for, as by the inward testimony of the Spirit we do 
alone truly know them, so they testify that the Spirit 
is that guide by which the saints are led into all 
truth ; therefore, according to the scriptures, the 
Spirit is the first and principal leader. Seeing, then, 
that we do therefore receive and believe the scrip- 
tures, because they proceeded from the Spirit, for 
the very same reason is the Spirit more originally 
and principally the rule, according to the received 
maxim in the schools : ' Propter quod unum quod- 
que est tale, illud ipsum est magis tale ;' that for 
which a thing is such, that thing itself is more such." 
Of this caballistical aphorism more hereafter. 

I have taken the above from a late publication of 
theirs, entitled, " An EXPOSITION of the Faith 
of the religious society of friends, commonly 
called Quakers, in the fundamental doctrines 
OF the christian religion, principally selected 

FROM THEIR EARLY WRITINGS. By THOMAS EvANS." 

With the family of the compiler, or author, I have 
some quondam acquaintance ; and may add, that I 
sincerely respect them for their singular intelligence, 
and comparative deference for the scriptures ; in 






73 

which they seem to me to go farther than others, 
and perhaps as far as they can, with the perilous 
enchantment of Fox and Barclay, and all the retinue 
of inspired errorists of the sort, obstructing them. 
For others of the party I entertain a similar defer- 
ence — as real and as deep as they possess who 
flatter them more, or who dislike their errors less. 
The Exposition contains 232 citations from early 
Friends, to prove " that they sincerely believed, 
and openly avowed, the great fundamental truths of 
the christian religion." It is published under the 
sanction of the society, by their assembled " repre- 
sentatives." The work is neat, showing great ac- 
curacy and great pains-taking in the selection. It 
is constituted throughout of precious excerpts from 
the writings of the society ; and appears to me — 
and it would be affectation to imply that I did not 
think myself a judge in such things — to be the very 
best manifesto of their views, in seeming approxi- 
mation to catholic orthodoxy, that I have ever seen, 
or which I believe it possible to compile or select 
from the writings of their authors. It proves, how- 
ever, that in their belief they have been cardinal 
heretics from the beginning — the whole of them ; 
and that the present " orthodox" intend to remain 
what their fathers were. Allow me, too, to express 
my wonder and regret at the facility with which 
some truly orthodox divines, under the influence of 
the imposing name of orthodox, have gloried in them, 
and recognised them as christian brethren, vastly 
increasing the satisfactions of the inward light ! It is 

10 



74 

really injuring them, and compromising the truth of 
God, which we are set to defend. 

Let me state a case that is quite parallel in my 
own estimate. Some Unitarians, as they call them- 
selves, in order to slander us of tritheism, are as 
low as Socinus himself, uncle or nephew ; as low as 
mere humanitarianism can make them. Others of 
hoc genus omne, are hyperarians ; they believe not 
only that Jesus Christ is the chief of all creatures, 
but so ancient and exalted and incomparable, that he 
is their constituted Head, and even very God — in a 
subordinate sense ! i. e. that he is God, truly and 
properly, saving only that he is not the eternal Je- 
hovah, and was indeed created to be, what he is, 
the glorious Chieftain of creation. Thus I have 
given the scale of finite, on which different degrees, 
between the two extremes specified, are selected, 
by different " deniers of the Lord that bought them/' 
as their resting-place — for the present. How high, 
very estimable sirs, on that scale might I ascend, 
speaking divers good and true things by the way, 
in favor of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and 
at the same time denying his supreme divinity, 
before you, who understand this subject so wisely 
and well, would own me as a brother in the Lord 1 
You would tell me, that though he was " of the 
seed of David according to the flesh," i. e. in his 
proper human nature, he was also, in his superior 
nature, " God over all, and blessed for ever;" 
and that until I threw away my scale of finite, and 
forbore to attempt to measure infinite, and recog- 
nise Jesus Christ as the Jehovah of the Bible, 



75 

whom Isaiah saw in vision on his throne, ch. 6, (John, 
12,) such a recognition could never be extended ; 
it was morally impossible, and wholly out of the 
question ; and you would, I think, answer as you 
ought, in consistency not more than duty. It is not 
by lowering, or altering the standard of God, that 
men are reduced to conformity and similitude. 

And when a whole sect come, in effect, to you, 
and detrude " the oracles of God" from their justly 
supreme pre-eminence, call them " a secondary 
rule," and license them to be " esteemed as such ;" 
and make God himself a rule of action; (the 
only way in which they can show a superior rule ;) 
and profess to walk by the greater, and not by the 
less ; and maintain the plenary inspiration of George 
Fox and all his satellites ; and tell you that the 
scriptures can be known in their divinity, not by 
faith cordially honoring the rational evidence that 
demonstrates it abundantly, but only by having the 
same spirit that they had who gave them forth ; 

thus " MAKING THE WORD OF GOD OF NONE EFFECT, 
THROUGH THEIR TRADITION WHICH THEY HAVE DE- 
LIVERED," as well as received ; " and many such 
like things they do;" and when they say divers 
other things, and some that are true and important, 
which they affect to know irrespectively of " the 
secondary rule," or in a way of paramount autho- 
rity — though you all well know, that there is not a 
particle of " light in them" which they have not 
borrowed, or rather " stolen," (a felony which the 
Bible itself indignantly resents,) from that dishonored 
rule, " that they might keep their own tradition :" 



76 

I say, in such a case as this, will you absolve them 
of the greater, for the sake of the less 1 This is not 
the way of absolution in a higher relation — " even 
as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you." Nor 
do I see, by parity of reasoning, so far as the general 
principle and spiritual ethics of the caso are con- 
cerned, why we might not recognise also some, or 
many of the deniers of the divinity of Jesus Christ, 
because they talk so much panegyric, and so much 
truth of him, and because they live and act so un- 
blamably, notwithstanding ! I am far from accusing 
you of any such recognition ; and only allege, that, 
however benevolently your hearts may beat, as I 
know they do, toward their highest interests, you 
will be wrong in principle, and injurious toward those 
very interests, should you recognise, in your exalted 
stations, the visibility of their claims as a christian 
church, or the reality of their pretensions as individual 
christians. An opposite course would, I am per- 
suaded, be a real injury to themselves. Their error 
debilitates all their principles of faith, and pervades 
the whole of their religious sympathy. I have no 
doubt at all, that it has, first and last, been the means 
of destroying more souls than the wheels of the 
great car of oriental idolatry have ever crushed of the 
bodies of men, devoutly prostrate before them ! It 
is a virus that I know experimentally, and shudder 
at the thoughts of it : " remembering mine afflic- 
tion and my misery, the wormwood and the gall, 
my soul hath them still in remembrance, and is hum- 
bled in me." As long as it lasts, we can never con- 
vince a Friend of one of his " legion" of subordi- 
nate mistakes ! It completely nullifies the con- 



stitution! Like papacy, it pays great court to a 
certain volume, the legitimate use of which it for 
ever precludes ; awarding, it may be, a costly and 
gorgeous " envelope of purple, a casket and a lock, 
for the Word of Life !" If there is any doubt of this, I 
ask a Friend, on certainly demonstrable scriptural 
evidence, to submit most cordially to the ordinances 
of baptism and the Lord's supper. And what think 
you of this divine test \ I know what to think. He 
will not wait for the evidence ! he is afraid to look 
at it ! and as for doing it, not he ! he will glide off, 
like an eel in his proper element, and resist the 
light that shines "outwardly" as plain as day; 
under the influence of his viaticum of interior illu- 
mination ; walking by the greater, and not by the 
less ! ! And so of any thing else, contained, however 
plainly, in the word of God, which his carnal preju- 
dices happen to dislike. 

I dismiss this part of the subject with the remark, 
that it is, at all events, safer to withhold such recog- 
nition, in doubtful circumstances, than to extend it ; 
since, if they are christians, many, or all, or any of 
them, such will not be ultimately damaged by the 
principled reserve ; if otherwise, you will do nothing 
to assist their delusion ; and, at all events, it should 
never be a question, in reference to any people, 
who, on any pretence whatever, professing a general 
Christianity, still reduce the word of God to a rule 
of " secondary" importance. All I know, and all 
I have ever thought, and read, and prayed, on this 
momentous subject, has settled me in the conclusion 
for ever, that they are fundamentally wrong on this 



78 

article, touching the rule of scripture in religion ; 
that they can never be rectified till they surrender, 
with all their heart, that npQrov ^evSog 16 of their 
heresy ; that any reformation short of this, is nothing 
but an abortion, instead of a birth ; and that any 
other sentiment in the case, especially emanating 
from centres of influence, and eminences of light, 
honored and dear sirs, such as God hath appointed 
you to fill with happy success in this our age and 
country, would dishonor the Master whom you serve, 
and injure the cause that you love, and frustrate the 
very ends that might prompt or tempt your benevo- 
lence, in any instance, to utter or to sanction it. 

3. For reasons similar to those just stated, it seems 
not justifiable that the ' orthodox' should be sanc- 
tioned in their severities against their brethren of 
the other party. Into the merits of their contro- 
versies I have no mind to enter, referring to princi- 
ples alone in these animadversions. I ask the 
' orthodox ' the following questions : Do you see 
the errors of the other party 1 Do you lament them I 
Do you feel, in their case, the criminality of religious 
error 1 Do you wish to correct and reclaim them 1 
Well ! I admit that you do. But have a care how 
you carry it toward them. Are yourselves much bet- 
ter, when you tell them doctrinally that their inward 
light (this is no fetch or perversion) is paramount 
to the book of their reputed scorn ! that the Bible 
is not the word of God ! that the Holy Scriptures 
amount only to a " secondary rule," and ought to 
be so " esteemed !" and that Fox (to say nothing 
of thousands of others) was truly inspired, accord- 






79 

ing to his towering pretensions ! You had better be 
cleaner yourselves, before you count their spots. 
You had better study self-knowledge more impar- 
tially, before you " throw the first stone " at them. 
In the name of Jesus Christ, my glorious Master 
and Redeemer, I am not at all afraid to say to you, 
Repent of your cardinal heresy, and accept the word 
of God as your highest rule in religion! In 
vain do you vend your inspired argumentation 
against them ; they can answer you with arguments 
equally inspired. You will only break down one 
another, without building up any one in the " most 
holy faith" of christians. You have helped to take 
from them both the fulcrum and the lever, without 
which all attempts to elevate their views are vain. 
Like task-masters of old, you take away straw, and 
demand the " full tale " of brick. They will never be 
rectified, nor you either, till you both renounce to- 
gether, or that party that shall be so rectified, your 
mysticising heresy of interior light and your conse- 
quent degradation of the word of God — a heresy 
in which there is, alas ! quite too little to choose be- 
tween you. But, I have more to say on the schism. 
4. There may be such an unceremonious denounc- 
ing of the other party, as the lower and the more 
erroneous, as really to do injustice to some of their 
better characteristics; regarding the men, rather 
than their wrong opinions, in this palliative re- 
flection. That some of them are very honest, and 
possessed of much moral courage of a certain sort, 
must be admitted. Their very confessions of infi- 
delity are honorable, rather than covert hypocrisy. 



80 

Any thing but a hooded villain — a concealed and 
sanctimonious hypocrite in the church! There is 
always more hope of the conversion of an infidel, 
that knows himself such, than of a false pretender 
who mistakes himself for a genuine worshipper. A 
man had better, with respect to the hopefulness of 
his conversion to Christ, have no religion than a false 
one ; had better know himself a foe, than mistake 
himself a friend. " Be not deceived : God is not 
mocked." Till deceit can throw its veil of mid- 
night over the eye-sight of Omniscience, its prac- 
tisings, however ingenious, will be utterly vain. 
They may ruin and deceive their possessor alone. 
If to say this be uncourtly — I am acting for the court 
of heaven. 

The grand rallying sentiment of the party now 
in question, has been that of their great champion — 
whose name is now burnt into them as Hicksites : No 

MAN CAN BELIEVE WHAT HE DOES NOT UNDERSTAND. 

It is not with him original, as you well know : nor is 
the controversy novel that depends upon it. It affects 
every truth and every heresy ; it belongs to some 
very interesting discussions in intellectual philoso- 
phy ; and it deserves to be well considered for the 
sake of all men. It is a matter that actually enters 
into the experience in some way of every thinking 
christian, and of every doubting sinner. And I con- 
fess that it has elicited my compassion, when I 
have witnessed the hopeless contests, especially of 
Friends, in regard to it. That there is some truth in 
it, which of you, dear sirs, will question 1 How then 
ought the difficulty to be resolved 1 How does it 



81 

affect our moral relations to the mysteries of the gos- 
gel ? How does it consist with the criminality of 
error and the obligations of faith 1 

As I have not lately first considered the subject, 
and have my own way of resolving it, in which how- 
ever I am neither solitary nor original, I hope it will 
little startle you when I say — that the position is 
not more sweeping than true ; in my judgment. 
I repeat the averment — No man can believe what 
he does not understand. I extend it to religion 
and every thing else ; but prefer the apophthegm 
that faith and intelligence must be commensurate, at 
least in this respect, that faith can go no farther 
than intelligence, though intelligence may go farther 
than faith. 

To me it does not appear where there is either 
fallacy or peril in the proper import and use of this 
position. I certainly deceive myself greatly or I un- 
derstand all that I believe on every subject. Take 
that of "the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
of the Holy Ghost," for a high example. You can 
easily show me the limit of intellection on this topic, 
dazzling with its own effulgence. You can show 
me the fact revealed; yes, I believe it, and I under- 
stand the fact revealed ! But do I understand the 
mode of it also 1 No, I do not — nor do I believe the 
mode of it, either. The mode is no subject of reve- 
lation, no object of faith, no matter of intelligence. 
I believe that God is one in one sense ; and three 
in another sense : and not so either as to exclude 
the other. But as to the mode or manner of it, or 
the question, How is it sol I understand nothing, 

n 



82 

I believe nothing, I read nothing in the scriptures. 
So I take it is the truth with respect to every other 
matter of revealed instruction. But I go farther. 
I find every thing in the universe, as related to my 
knowledge, precisely in the same predicament. 
What are the premises of natural philosophy, but 
facts or phenomena, observed and classed, defined 
and methodized, with the exactitude of science 1 So 
of astronomy, botany, chemistry, geology, and the 
whole of physical science — not alone. But do not 
philosophers understand the modes of the facts 1 
Not at all. They understand to some extent the re- 
lations of the facts ; and facts subordinate which 
analysis discovers : but still they know no more of 
modes than essences. If this be true, we owe it to 
the Hicksites, fathers and brethren, just because 
we owe it to all others whom we can influence or 
assist in vanquishing the obstructions that intercept 
their return to the " obedience of the faith " — from 
what source soever they result, to disabuse genuine 
orthodoxy of the false metaphysics that have dis- 
honored it; to facilitate the way of life to the 
faith of men universally ; and not to consecrate the 
errors of good men or even great ones, because 
some of them have gloomed the whole of Christi- 
anity by protruding and aggrandizing the opposite 
position. I regard it as granting the whole cause 
to the enemy ; as surrendering the total contro- 
versy ; for one to require, contrary to the laws of 
mind, a homage to the gospel which, for that reason 
if for no other, the mind instinctively refuses to 
render! and this, if I mistake not, is an infinitely 



83 

interesting concern ! " We are debtors both to the 
Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and 
to the unwise ; as much as in us is, to be ready to 
preach the gospel" to them. Isai. 57: 14. Hab. 
2:2. It would be sad for us in the day of judg- 
ment—I had almost said, even at the right hand of 
our glorious Lord, if he should there prove against 
us that, because " not skilful in the word of right- 
eousness," we had made dark what he had made 
clear, difficult what he had rendered easy, and unin- 
telligible what himself had fully and with infinite 
condescension expounded ! 

Allow me here to relate an anecdote in point. 
I was once providentially (some few years since) 
thrown in company with several respected persons 
of this unhappy persuasion. One of them, an edu- 
cated and regular physician of the city of Phila- 
delphia, remarked that he would rather hear 
nothing on that subject, for it would be useless; 
adding, I am so certain that a man cannot believe 
what he does not understand, that I never wish to 
listen to what confessedly contradicts this principle. 
Said I — may I not say any thing 1 No, was the 
answer; if contradictory to the position aforesaid. 
I replied, but what if I avouch the same, for I cer- 
tainly believe it myself I This greatly surprised him 
and others. I proceeded : explained some of the 
greatest facts of revelation in coincidence with it; 
and elicited from him the concession — I never heard 
any thing so rational or convincing in favor of 
your side of the question before ! His countenance 
changed from the first moment he perceived my 



S4 

meaning, from lightness to gravity. He always 
behaved differently to me and to these topics after- 
ward; and on his lamented death-bed. besides the 
patience he showed and the confessions he made, 
he ventured with trembling to express a hope of 
redemption through the blood of the Lamb ; wel- 
comed a christian minister to his apartment ; united 
with him in prayer ; and called Jesus Christ his 
Redeemer! Forgive me. sirs, for a tear to the mem- 
ory of my own dear late brother. James Cox. M. D, 
who left the world in December 1831, in the 
35th year of his age. The Lord reigns ! He 
was a man of unsullied character ; in social and 
professional life universally respected. In chas- 
tity of manners, in justice oi principle, in decision 
of conduct, his equals were few and his admirers 
many. And of his errors — liking them as little as 
you can. / can appreciate his prejudices, his educa- 
tion, his impediments, his real ignorance of Chris- 
tianity ! Forgive the reference and the episode : — 
there are thousands of others in a similar condition. 
O that I could help them to •'• behold the Lamb of 
God that taketh away the sin of the world !" I would 
labor for their salvation, and think their souls, 
gathered in Christ Jesus, the best line in the world : 
for he whom such a motive would not supremelv 
influence deserves truly the epithet of " hireling " or 
reprobate. 

In view of this noble distinction between the fact 
and the mode, as related to the faith and the duty 
of men — that is. to their believing and practising 
" the glorious gospel of the blessed God :" while it 



85 

gives a lucid and legitimate facility above almost 
any other, and is of universal applicability ; I would 
say to Friends of both parties, that it will leave 
them " without excuse " if, upon whatever pretence, 
they refuse that gospel. The end for which the 
gospel was written, is that for which the whole 
volume of inspiration was written. It is not to in- 
form us of " a superior rule" within us — which it 
behoved to do, if any such thing exists ; and so at 
once to nullify its utility and condemn its copious- 
ness ; for who could want such a massive volume, 
as a mere index-finger to the inward light — and 
then afterward need the more voluminous writings, 
equally inspired, of Friends, as a supplemental ap- 
pendix to its contents I The design of the scriptures, 
of which Jesus Christ is the pervading subject-theme 
from first to last, is plainly declared to us : " These 
are written THAT YE MIGHT BELIEVE that 
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that, 
believing, ye might have life through his name." 
Hence the whole scriptures are said to be " made 

KNOWN TO ALL NATIONS FOR THE OBEDIENCE OF 

faith." To believe, is to obey; for God commands 
us to believe. Mark, 1 : 15. 1 John, 3 : 23. The 
design of revelation then, and of inspiration as the 
way of revelation, is to disclose to us the lessons of 
truth which we are required to learn ; the doctrines 
of God, which we are obligated to receive ; and the 
duties of wisdom, happiness, and salvation, which we 
are privileged and commanded to perform. And all 
this under the sanction of — life or death eternal! 
Jesus Christ has plainly suspended our destiny on 



86 

this single point — whether we cordially embrace the 
gospel or not ! Mark, 16 : 15, 16. And what shall 
we say to him, in the day of judgment, if then we 
are revealed to have been spiritual infidels ; what- 
ever we professed to be, or perhaps thought our- 
selves here, or whatever other frail mortals thought 
and said of us 1 Shall we say, Lord, how can a man 
believe what he cannot understand 1 He may an- 
swer — I revealed facts, realities, things that are, and 
those at once the most important for me to disclose, 
and for you to embrace : I revealed them in human 
language ; fully, intelligibly, appositely, and required 
the universal assent of the understanding, and con- 
sent of the heart, to their supreme excellency. The 
mode of them I neither revealed, nor required you 
to believe, more than to understand or cavil about. 
I offered you salvation in those things ; I offered it 
practicably, sincerely, universally : and ye would not ! 
Ye loved your own superstition and tradition, more 
than my word ; which you wrested, dishonored, 
made void, and treated at best as " a secondary 
rule :" Wherefore, " Depart from me, ye cursed, into 
everlasting fire ;" that same fire which was " pre- 
pared for" original transgressors, " the devil and 
his angels." 

Will you, superior, and safe by presumption, scorn 
the representation ; and count it methodistical and 
gross 1 Then know, my friends, that the experi- 
ence — I pray it may never be yours — will be more 
gross than the representation — more humbling — 
more terrible ! I fear that few of you ever have been, 
as all men ought to be, rationally afraid, of the 



87 

" damnation" which the scriptures reveal. Strange 
is the paradox on this subject, respecting the doc- 
trine of the fact, that those generally who seem 
least afraid of the fact are most annoyed with the 
doctrine ; those most exposed to the greater, most 
nauseate the less; those who can imperturbably 
brave damnation for a whole life-time, are most 
delicately timid of the word even occasionally told 
to them. 

It seems impossible for Friends to distinguish 
wisely between the figurative and the mystical style ; 
and because the Bible abounds with the former 
though totally destitute of the latter, and because 
Friends abound with the latter even more than the 
former, they are perpetually mysticising. In their in- 
terpretation of scripture especially, nothing will sa- 
tisfy them, when in this vein, but mystery : every 
figure must be mystified before it can be held to con- 
tain any thing spiritual. This propensity does infi- 
nite mischief to their religion : it ruins the sober 
influence of scripture, or rather wholly prevents it. 
The best interpreters (and the best men are also meant 
by these) have shown that mysticalness is no attri- 
bute of revelation : which is the disclosure of things 
otherwise secret, and the attestation of things other- 
wise uncertain. What God says is true. But in 
what he says, the grand matter is what he means. 
Meaning is the soul of truth. To suppose that 
there is no sober coincidence between his words 
and his meaning, or that his meaning is unintelli- 
gible, or recondite beyond all the laws of language 
to contain, and all the fairest laws of interpretation 



88 

to evolve, is monstrous. It is the same as to charge 
God with deception and shuffling. It is a contra- 
diction also. For, what kind of a revelation is that, 
which purposely obscures what it professes to un- 
veil 1 Now mysticism is nothing but double and 
doubtful meaning; where all is more dark and 
senseless, after the explanation professedly given. 
The facts or realities revealed in scripture are 
grand ; and mysterious, it may be, in the mode of 
their existence. But as facts they are all intelligi- 
ble, and the propositions in which they are expressed 
are all intelligible : and to believe the facts in the 
propositions is properly faith, and saving faith also 
if we believe them ivith the heart. But the mode of 
them, and the mystery of them, have nothing to do 
with faith any more than with intelligence. Mysti- 
cism draws a veil of its own weaving over the open 
face of revelation. What God reveals, as far as he 
reveals it, may be understood ; and in that re- 
spect it maybe said that we understand all that we 
believe. Thus the proposition that God exists is 
plain, and I believe it. As a fact it is intelligible, 
credible, and not at all mysterious. But the mode 
of the fact is mysterious. How does he exist! I 
do not know. I do not believe or preach or care 
any thing in respect to the mode : so that I am 
wholly without faith, where I am also without know- 
ledge and understanding, on the question how does 
he exist ? So also of all the facts of revelation ; 
while a consistent practical recognition of this plain 
distinction would answer all the ends of faith and 
piety, without any of the absurdities of our own 



making on this article, which are wholly adverse to 
those ends. 

But some of you will say ; After all, your distinc- 
tion is of little consequence ! Why 1 Because it 
sheds too strong a light on the subject 1 Because 
you hate the facts revealed 1 Then know that this 
is the quintessence of — depravity. You are the un- 
converted children of the first Adam, and not the 
converted children of the second. To hate the 
facts of revelation — is just the character and the 
crime o{ our total species, since the primeval apos- 
tacy! it is that very fundamental fact which the 
scriptures reveal and which heresy sophisticates ! 
the fact without which the whole fabric of the gos- 
pel falls, and the right experimental knowledge of 
which is necessary to all true spiritual discernment. 
The depravity of man is his fault, and not his mis- 
fortune. For it he is to be primarily blamed, not 
pitied. He is voluntary in it all. He never excuses 
its ebullitions in others, especially when it injures 
him. God will not excuse it in him. And yet it 
is not peculiar to Friends, but to the species, to 
deny, conceal, and most reluctantly to own it. Still, 
it is the statute of Jehovah's mercy and the limita- 
tion of its sway of glorious sovereignty, that the 
person of an opposite character, and he alone, shall 
be pardoned and saved. " He that covereth his 
sins shall not prosper : but whoso confesseth and 
forsaketh them shall have mercy." Pro v. 28 : 13. 
Friends, however, have some peculiar ways of 
" covering" sin ; and very few ways of confessing 

12 



90 

it. In the " Journal" of their founder there are 
repeated asseverations of an almost immaculate 
innocency ; 17 but scarcely such a thing as one humi- 
liating confession of sin in all the two octavos ! 
And this characteristic, not without some excep- 
tions, pervades the mass of their writings. They 
mystify the acknowledgment of their depravity ; 
throw it mostly into the third person universal ; and 
seem much estranged to the petition of the publi- 
can — especially its formal allusion to the atonement, 
which, you know, dear sirs, though unperceived in 
our translation, is a prominent excellence of the 
original. They speak of their wickedness as " a 
seed, a principle, a root," and so forth ; as if it were 
a physical malady, for which they were to be more 
pitied than periled or blamed, and not a mere moral 
evil for which they, and they only, are to blame ;— 
or, sin is no longer sin ; and the difference between 
physical and moral evil is no more to be discrimi- 
nated or believed. I need not add that to confound 
this primordial distinction, is to explode all moral 
government ; to violate the public sentiment of 
mankind ; to be condemned by the philosophy of 
more enlightened heathenism ; to contradict our 
own moral organization and consciousness ; to con- 
found the day of judgment and the Judge himself! 
If men are moral agents, absolutely and perfectly 
such ; if all their moral conduct, right and wrong, 
is entirely voluntary, and subject to the jurisdiction 
of the Eternal Lawgiver ; if their responsibility is 
necessary and entire ; if they can disbelieve the 
gospel, only by neglecting it, perverting it, avoiding 



91 

It, contradicting it, and sophisticating it, or opposing 
it with resolute antipathy ; if their impenitence or 
unbelief or heresy is all the acting of moral wick- 
edness, " an evil heart of unbelief in departing 
from the living God " so that they become " hard- 
ened through the deceitfulness of sin;" if the cause 
is faulty, criminal, " exceeding sinful ;" if their im- 
piety and consequent perdition (should they die as 
they live — which is probable) results from a faulty 
cause alone, and is itself essentially criminal and 
blame-worthy in the moral estimate of God ; if their 
alienation is voluntary as well as habitual, and guilty 
as well as ordinarily invincible ; if it result not from 
want of capacity to be accountable, nor evidence 
quite sufficient to convince, nor provision amply 
made in Christ for their redemption, nor the free 
and importunate offer of a full salvation, nor the 
stirrings and remonstrances of " the Spirit and the 
Bride" that " say, Come :" and these premises are 
all true and demonstrable, I am sure : then it fol- 
lows — but, I am overwhelmed ! ! — " Where shall 
the ungodly and the sinner appear'? What shall 
the end be of them that obey not the gospel of 
God V I hear the irrevocable sentence, " Ye shall 
die in your sins, and where I am ye cannot come !" 
So they must die, if so they continue to live. To 
warn them as they go, and to warn them as " pri- 
soners of hope," is a strong and a mighty incentive 
with me in this publication. 

Of the one party it is a favorite excuse thpt there 
are so many mysteries in scriptural theology. What 
if there are 1 They are all parts of the great " mys- 



92 

tery of godliness " — and the alternative of " godli- 
ness" is "hell-fire!" But what mystery is there y 
the fact of which, in appropriate propositions, a man 
cannot both understand and believe 1 I know of no 
such mystery in the scriptures ; and should like to 
have one discretely pointed out to me. To some 
it will appear that the word and the idea of mystery 
is fatal to the validity of the distinction between 
the fact and the mode : because, if the distinction 
be valid, all mystery is precluded ; and the objects 
of faith may be, and indeed are all molded into 
rational and intelligible propositions ; and so en- 
tirely denuded of mystery. The difficulty results 
from confounding two different senses in which the 
word mystery is used ; and from misconceiving its 
scriptural sense. If this is correct, I am sure it 
is so important as to be worth reading " in season 
and out of season." The first may be called the 
metaphysical and popular or colloquial sense — for 
they are the same ; and its definition is, That which 
is essentially incomprehensible or inconceivably supe- 
rior to our mental perceptions, so as seemingly to 
violate the laws of evidence and the possibility of 
intelligence. The other is simply, A secret; a 
thing previously and inscrutably unknown, till dis- 
closed by authentic evidence. This last is the scrip- 
tural sense ; and not the other. The word mystery, 
singular and plural, occurs near thirty times in the 
New {not once in the Old) Testament. But I can- 
not find a solitary instance where it means any thing 
but a secret ; not to be discovered indeed by human 
penetration ; but, being ' revealed ' to the holy apos- 



93 

ties for our profit and their own, both credible and 
intelligible as any other fact : " according to the 
revelation of the mystery (the disclosure of the 
fact) which was kept secret since the world began, 

but NOW IS MADE MANIFEST, and BY THE SCRIPTURES 
OF THE PROPHETS, ACCORDING TO THE COMMAND- 
MENT OF THE EVERLASTING GoD, MADE KNOWN TO 
ALL NATIONS FOR THE OBEDIENCE OF FAITH." Rom. 

16 : 25, 26. No inward light here. 

The only text which might seem as an excep- 
tion, and which as such, has been not infrequently 
quoted, will be found on examination to be rather a 
more illustrious example. Permit me to quote it as 
it is not (though it ought to be) translated in our 
Bible. 1 Tim. 3 : 16. " The pillar and ground of 
the truth — and without controversy great is the 
mystery of godliness — is this : God was manifested 
in human nature ; vindicated by the Spirit ; beheld 
by angels ; preached unto the nations ; accredited 
in the world ; received again to glory." In our ver- 
sion, the first clause is put in apposition with " the 
church of the living God ;" making the church the 
foundation of the truth, when plainly it is only the 
superstructure. " For other foundation can no man 
lay than that is laid, which is Jesus, the Christ." 
As we have it, it becomes a kind of apotheosis of 
" the church ;" which would suit Rome rather than 
a protestant community. The false rendering, here 
and elsewhere, has often helped their error. Rom. 
11 : 18. As it is rendered above, however, it gives, 
I am persuaded, the very sense of the original. 
The incarnation of Jesus Christ and the grand 



94 

affections of his history ; is declared to be the 
great secret of godliness, which the scriptures re- 
veal ; the substantial theme of their total testimony ; 
the illustrious fundamental of true religion ; the 
body and soul of inspired theology ; the centre of 
the circle ; the sun of the dependent system ; " the 
pillar and ground of the truth." The mystery is 
given in its parts ; each constituent proposition is 
a plainly intelligible fact and equally a credible one ; 
the secret is divulged, each part and the whole : to 
believe it is the way and the manner of " godli- 
ness." Wo be to " the mystery of iniquity" that 
rejects it, and seeks for a safer foundation ! And 
wo be to the sorcery that sophisticates its truth, or 
mystifies the facilities of faith in its august and 
most salutary disclosures ! Spiritual sorcery is the 
worst sorcery in the world. The greatest and most 
confounding mystery that I know, is — the despera- 
tion of voluntary and obstinate impiety ! the indo- 
lence, presumption, and fool-hardiness, of irreli- 
gious men! 

One observation more in respect to the schism. 
5. It has been made with both parties a capital 
question, and one of conflicting and exclusive 
claims ; ichich of them approaches more to the stand- 
ard of primitive Quakerism, or rather ichich party 
identically constitutes " the society" in this country, 
as the proper counterparts or the genuine successors 
of the foxian Friends, It were perhaps a more 
correct account to say that neither party has made 
it a question at all. Either arrogates the honor 
and denies it to the other : and which is right ? 19 



95 

Grammatici certant ; et adhuc sub judice lis est. — Hor. 

A quarrel 'tis, where sages disagree 
And vainly strive to solve the mystery. 

Inspiration, however oraculous, is of little avail ; 
because it can be so soon counteracted with oppo- 
site inspiration. Here " Greek meets Greek ;" 
and when " the tug of war " will end, or on whose 
standard the eagles of victory will perch, is a ques- 
tion for prognosticators. My own opinion is two- 
fold : (1) That either party can perhaps equally 
prove their positions from Fox, Barclay and others. 
I know of no latitude of mysticising or heresy to 
which the Hicksites have gone, for which precedent 
of the primitive sort may not be cited from their 
books : nor any summit of orthodoxy to which their 
more intelligent rivals have advanced, for which I 
have not myself perused the sanction of the same 
authority. This is my full conviction : and I would 
burden this long chapter with ample quotations 
in point, did I conceive it of any adequate impor- 
tance. Their respective publications however sus- 
tain the assertion. But, convinced more powerfully 
that they are all wrong together ; that there is error 
enough among the best of them to annul their visi- 
bility as christian professors, and fix them with 
the fanatical corrupters of the truth of God — all of 
them, as long as they remain voluntarily in their 
not-half-reformed imbecility ; my opinion is (2) 
That the care they take, and the pains they are at, 
to make out their exclusive title to primitive Friend - 
ism, is a demonstration of their childishness and 



96 

vacuity : a question not worth settling ; and which 
"it argueth," as Bacon says of such disputes, 
" more real subtlety to despise than consider." I in- 
stance it as a proof of their real puerility. It shows 
also at what they are aiming — not at heaven, but 
earth ; not at proficiency, but retrogradation ; not 
to be christians, but Friends ! This is the truth of 
the matter, and the sum of it. Has God promised 
salvation to their attainments, even should they suc- 
ceed in making them? In some respects they seem 
as completely abandoned of the temper of logical 
candor and honest susceptibility to evidence, as the 
Jews themselves ; of whom says the apostle, with 
some terrific parallelism ; they " both killed the 
Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have per- 
secuted us : and they please not God and are con- 
trary to all men ; forbidding us to speak 20 to the 
Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins 
always ; for the wrath is come upon them to the 
uttermost." 1 Thess. 2 : 15, 16. The infatuation 
of men, we know, is often judicial and desperate: 
" that they all might be damned who believed not 
the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." 
2 Thess. 2 : 10-12. I hope in God for better things 
in store for some of them ! 

I will here state numerically some reasons why 
the ecclesiastical visibility of the ' orthodox ' or of 
Friends universally, as a christian church, cannot 
be recognised by the churches of Christ. (1) They 
do not even profess to be a christian church — 
they are only " the religious society of Friends." 
Their body too is composed mainly of birth-right 



97 

members, those who from the birth Mve' been full 
and entire members without any confession or cove- 
nanting of their own : while few unite with them 
on " convincement." They used to be called " seek- 
ers " at first. (2) They deny "the holy scriptures " 
to be the word of God. (3) They deny them to 
be the primary rule* of religious action; declar- 
ing them to be properly " esteemed " only as " a 
secondary rule." (4) They declare that every hu- 
man being has something "within" him, which is 
by way of eminence his highest and the primary 
rule, all-sufficient for duty and salvation. (5) They 
expressly affirm this internal rule to be superior 
to the scriptures ; and they walk by the greater 
and not by the less. (6) Their confession of the 
revealed doctrine of the godhead is equivocal, 
Sabellian, and adverse, expressly adverse, to the 
tri-personal nature of God. (7) They deny in 
theory and practice the christian sacraments, 
positively deny them — though these are the con- 
stituted signals of visibility, putting the paternal 
name on all the children of the visible covenant 
family of God. (8) They have no such thing as a 
proper christian ministry, of either sex, among 
them. (9) They do not believe in the resurrec- 
tion of the body ; and they " overthrow the faith 
of" many in this prime article of the creed of chris- 
tians. (10) They give no proof of honoring or 
achieving those great ends for which mainly the 
visibility and organization of christian churches exist 
on the earth : — such as maintaining the pure confes- 
sion of "the truth as it is in Jesus ;" the true wor- 

13 



98 

ship of God, according to his word; the diffusion 
of evangelical influence ; the propagation of genu- 
ine Christianity through the world ; the constant 
and clear offer of salvation, with all the proper 
facilities for obtaining it, to every individual that 
has capacities to heed and accept ; and the mu- 
tual EDIFICATION OF BELIEVERS ill " the faith of 

God's elect, and the acknowledging of the truth 
which is after godliness, in hope of eternal life., 
which God, that cannot lie, promised before the 
world began, but hath in due times manifested his 
toord through preaching, which is committed" to 
competent men, " according to the commandment 
of God our Savior." Tit. 1 : 2, 3. (11) They funda- 
mentally vitiate the worship of God, render- 
ing it visionary, mystical, impracticable : a system 
of refined will-worship and schismatical folly. See 
synopsis infra, Art. 21 and note. (12) They have 
DISTINCTIVE marks only as heretics and mystics 
and sectarians ; none of a christian church. (13) 
They exco3imunicate and denounce all visible 

CHRISTIAN CHURCHES, RECIPROCATING NO RECOGNI- 
TION with them, and preferring their own way 
with jure divino et exclusivo claims to be themselves 
the only authorized religionists and genuine worship- 
pers in the world. (14) They are doing nothing 
visibly for the conversion of the world to Christ. 
(15) They will have to be entirely superseded 
before the millennium ; as one of the real obstacles 
that retard its advent. (16) I know not what body 

OF PERVERTED RELIGIONISTS WE MAY NOT RECOG- 
NISE, if we may them ; nor on what principle 



99 

of evangelical truth and order, we could possibly 
proceed in such recognition ; nor what piety we 
ever promote by lowering the standard or by throw- 
ing it away. 2 John, 7-11. Rev. 2 : 2, 9. 3: 9, 22. 

(17) They are not orthodox. The word is only a 
caricature as applied to them; and is just, only as 
discriminating them in contrast with the most ex- 
travagant and virulent specimens of infidel error. 

(18) Such recognition would only injure them — 
I mean their ultimate interests, not their present 

feelings. (19) They are to blame before God, 
and they alone, in the extant light and state of 
things, for not being recognised. It is wholly their 
own fault. Let them change, and be wise and 
sound and thorough in christian principle ; then 
they will be owned " by the whole family in heaven 
and earth," and by the Father. (20) To recognise 
a community in this superlative relation is solemn 
business. The laws of courtesy and kind neighbor- 
hood have nothing to do with it. We have no right 
to consult social feelings, or any other feelings. We 
must proceed according to principle, truth, scripture. 
No discretion is committed to us by the Great Head of 
the church, in the way of making or changing or va- 
cating the laws that govern the case, and for which 
the responsibility is not ours. Let those who dissent 
from these positions, show that they are unscriptu- 
ral ; or censure the Lawgiver ; or expect no notice 
from the officers of Christ, whatever they say in 
controversy. 

Some of these reasons may partially imply each 
other ; still, a correct expose required the different 



100 

aspects of the matter to be seen. The true way 
to determine the question is — 1. To consider the 
' orthodox' absolutely, as though Hicksites were 
not ; allowing no partial or party influences to affect 
us. 2. To ascertain what they believe and profess, 
the whole of it, and the necessary implications of 
their system. 3. To compare the result with the 
revealed criterion, fully, impartially, clearly. 4. To 
decide, first, for eternity — and then, for time ! But 
many a sentence will proceed, no doubt, from many 
a person that is no judge. 

Friends will probably think I have forgotten the 
exhortation — " endeavoring to keep the unity of 
the spirit in the bond of peace." Eph. 4 : 3. Here 
they are again at fault. They ordinarily mistake 
wholly the meaning of the duty and the sense of 
the phrase. Read verses 1-6 of the context. They 
are all addressed to the church; that had one bap- 
tism, as I suppose all christians have, (visibly such,) 
who have been baptized into one name — that " of 
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." 
For, the unity of the name to which it visibly 
devotes us, I take to be the true criterion of the 
unity of baptism. Friends have never been bap- 
tized, in the sense of scripture, at all ! Besides, 
" the unity of the Spirit " means — the consistency 
and identity of all his inspirations : all are one ; 
a unit of harmonies, not a multiple of contradic- 
tions. It is objective, not subjective. Essentially, 
our feelings toiuard each other have nothing to do 
with it. Friends may feel unity toward each other, 
and toward good people of other denominations. 



101 

and yet have the Spirit, or know his unity, not at 
all ! All his influences are like each other and like 
Him — and hence we ought to conform to his truth 
and " endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit" as 
displayed in all his ways. 

The " Journal" of George Fox is indeed a cu- 
riosity. He was from his early youth an eccentric 
and extraordinary character. While yet in his teens 
it was remarked of him, he says, " If George says 
verily, there is no altering him." Vol. I, p. 84, 
Here was the identical germe in the acorn, I take 
it, whence sprang the great oak and its umbrage. 
In reference to the old shoemaker with whom he 
served, he writes ; " While I was with him he was 
blest, but after I left him he broke and came to 
nothing." Ibid. He adds, p. 85, The Lord " said 
unto me ; O^Thou seest how young people go toge- 
ther into vanity, and old people into the earth ; thou 
must forsake all, young and old, keep out of all, 
and be as a stranger unto all." It was now that his 
famous " openings" began. God, he continually 
says, told him this, that, and the other, totidem 
verbis ; 20 just as his old master, I suppose, was wont 
to do. Of one of those favored occasions, he writes, 
" I saw there was a great crack to go throughout 
the earth, and a great smoke to go as the crack 
went, and that after the crack there should be a 
great shaking. This was the earth in people's 
hearts, which was to be shaken before the seed of 
God was raised out of the earth." p. 100. He was 
at this time in doubt about which of the learned 
professions he should select. He was determined, 



102 

however, by an " opening ;" as follows : " The cre- 
ation was open to me ; and it was showed me, how- 
all things had their names given them, according to 
their nature and virtue. I was at a stand in my 
mind, whether I should practise physic for the good 
of mankind, seeing the nature and virtues of the 
creatures were so opened to me by the Lord." 
P. 104. One might almost regret that he had not 
selected the profession of medicine, since all its 
departments were so opened to him ! In botany, 
pharmacy, materia medica, pathology, and progno- 
sis, modern improvements had been anticipated ; 
Sydenham and Rush and other lights as certainly 
precluded ! A learned physician once said to me, 
" You preachers have the advantage of us ; our 
science involves such uncertainty : we have no ora- 
cles of medicine, no Bibles of practice." True — 
but how near they came on one occasion to realizing 
such a desideratum ! What discoveries in physical 
science had been the consequence ! We need not 
have waited for the experiments of Sir Humphrey 
Davy to demonstrate the non-entity of phlogiston ; 
or for Cuvier to set the world right about geological 
strata and the cosmogony of Moses. It is a fact, 
however, that many very respectable physicians of 
the society, who profess to believe, jpugnis et calci- 
bus 21 for ought I know, in the inspiration of George, 
have sustained a very useful and honorable place 
among " the professors of the healing art ;" with- 
out possessing one iota of such extraordinary "open- 
ings" or any science sublimated above common 
comprehension. In fact the medical profession is 



103 

a favorite resort of intellectual gentlemen of the 
society ; and many of them in the city of Philadel- 
phia have I known, and honored, as have thousands 
of others, since the commencement of the present 
century. Some of them are men of eminence — to 
whom I would propound the dilemma : If the foun- 
der of your sect was not inspired, most surely he 
was a deluded and well nigh a delirious fanatic : 
a case possibly of mania connected with some clas- 
sifications known to your science. But if he was 
not so merged in hallucination ; if he was truly in- 
spired ; then you ought, gentlemen, to know or to 
remember that you are all in the same awful con- 
demnation with the clergy and the bar ; for George 
had an " opening" on the subject, that is quite con- 
clusive equally against the incumbents of the three 
professions. They are all in the same category; 
their professions are all in a common dishonor : — 
and I call on you, by all your sincerity and by all 
your consistency, as Friends, to repent of this your 
wickedness, in presuming to go to school to learned 
lecturers instead of the inward light which shines 
in you ; a light that is grieved at your carnalities of 
that sort, and is so clear that fools can see it. Lis- 
ten then to your indictment and your sentence, 
gentlemen ! " I went to Clauson in Leicestershire, 
in the vale of Beavor ; and the mighty power of 
God appeared there also, in several towns and vil- 
lages where Friends were gathered. While I was 
there, the Lord opened to me three things, relating 
to those three great professions in the world, law, 
physic, and divinity, (so called.) He showed me, 



104 

that the physicians were out of the wisdom of God, 
by which the creatures were made ; and knew not 
the virtues of the creatures, because they were out 
of the Word of wisdom, by which they were made." 
Of the priests and lawyers he had openings in the 
same unity : when he sums up the matter thus ; 
" And that these three, the physicians, the priests, 
and ftie lawyers, ruled the world out of the wisdom, 
out of the faith, and out of the equity and law of 
God ; the one pretending the cure of the body, the 
other the cure of the soul, and the third the protec- 
tion of the property of the people." He then pro- 
ceeds to show that " all might be reformed :" and 
by what process 1 Truly, this Reformer had a unit, 
a catholicon, unum pro universis, which we might 
anticipate. It was "the light!" p. 106. But how 
impiously scientific some medical gentlemen of the 
society remain to this day ! 

With respect to his miracles, instead of enlarging 
on their history or nature, I will just transcribe the 
article in the " Index" to the second volume under 
that head ; where we may see a summation of them 
as received by Friends in this our day! Is it the 
nineteenth century — or the ninth ! 

" Miracles wrought by the power of God, I. 297 ; 
she that was ready to die raised up again, I. 301 ; 
the lame made whole, I. 214 ; the diseased restored, 
II. 208 ; a distracted woman healed, I. 117. See 
trouble of mind ; a great man given over by physi- 
cians restored, I. 121 ; G. F. prays for a distracted 
woman at Chichester, I. 303 ; restores J. Jay's neck, 
broke (as the people said) by a fall from a horse in 



105 

East-Jersey, II. 161 ; speaks to a sick man in Ma- 
ryland, who was raised up by the Lord's power, II. 
164, and prays the Lord to rebuke J. C.'s infirmity, 
and the Lord by his power soon gave him ease," 
&c. II. 321. 

Concerning his whole productions and influence, 
it may be justly said that he was one of the most 
indefatigable zealots, and at the same time one of 
the most deluded religionists that ever lived. His 
mission plenipotentiary from God, is remarkable 
equally for its super-apostolic claims and its entire 
destitution of rational evidence. " I saw ; it was 
clearly showed me ; the power of the eternal God 
came over me ; the Lord said to me ; the Lord 
opened to me ; the Lord moved me ;" and such 
like seals of evidence abound multitudinous, to a 
degree which no one of the sacred writers can 
parallel ; which not even the apocryphal history of 
" Tobit" can be thought to rival. Let no man 
condemn Ann Lee and the Shakerism she intro- 
duced ; nor the more recent votaries of Mormon- 
ism ; nor the blasphemies of Matthias ; nor any 
future outrage upon the laws of evidence or the 
feelings of piety or the proportions of truth ; if 
they are sufficiently obtuse or wayward to confess 
the inspiration of George Fox. If to hate and de- 
nounce all other religionists on the face of the whole 
earth, beside himself and his deluded retainers; 
if to vaunt himself a paragon of perfect innocence, 
an intimate or familiar of the attendant divinity, on 
every emergency perfectly inspired, a worker of 
miracles, victorious (as he says) on all occasions of 

14 



106 

dispute with learned men, knowing the contents of 
scripture without reading them, and ordained of 
God immediately for the rare work of utterly revo- 
lutionizing his own constitution ; if sincere confi- 
dence in his own qualifications ; if a bold and im- 
pudent invasion of the worship of others, interrupt- 
ing and insulting it in the name of the Lord as did 
not the apostles, and bestowing the coarsest epi- 
thets on every other ministry whenever he could find 
it ; if calling the Episcopalian edifices " steeple- 
houses," and contradicting their ministers publicly 
when in their own pulpits ; if disturbing other con- 
gregations, hundreds of them, wherever he went? 
" to draw away disciples after him," without re- 
spect to individual and corporate rights or the laws 
and constitution of society ; if provoking persecu- 
tion by such means and then complaining of it ; if 
illiterate effrontery in denouncing all liberal learn- 
ing and all its possessors and professors ; if a litera- 
lizing, mysticising, imaginative vein of theological 
dictation ; if resolute perseverance in devotion tc* 
his object : if all these things can constitute his 
claim to confidence — " Credat Judaeus Apella 1 rion 
ego." 22 Such an instance ought to convince man- 
kind, without sacrificing another of the species in the 
needless experiment, of the infinite importance 
of the scriptures ; as supplying the very desi- 
deratum of an adequate rule in religion, by which 
all opinions may be tried and all errors condemned^ 
with unsparing and impartial steadiness, and with 
supreme authority. All false religion, and all infi- 
delity, and all heresy, unite in this- — to put down 



107 

the volume of inspiration ; though they differ inimit- 
ably in their ways of doing it. Yet I know of 
nothing that makes it " void " more effectually than 
the leaven of Quakerism ! 

We ought too to be humble at the spectacle of 
our dishonored species. Poor human nature ! where 
is thy boasted intellect 1 where thy strength of judg- 
ment, thy sane integrity, thy virtue, thy wisdom 1 
And yet this system of distempered thought is in 
some of its aspects so imposing and so importunate, 
that in an intelligent and cordial attachment to 
the religion of the scriptures, and in that alone, 
is there any rational safety or protection from its 
fascinations. The ignorant bow to it, of course ! 
Yet who, beside the enlightened christian, is not 
ignorant of the contents, systematically viewed, of 
the word of God ? Fox is the root and the trunk of 
the tree of Quakerism. Some of the radical sap 
nourishes every branch ; swells every bud into a 
blossom ; matures the fruit ; qualifies the surround- 
ing odor ; constitutes the shade of its darkness ; 
and sustains all its homogenous parts, that have 
stood for nearly two centuries uplifted on such a 
supporter. But it is split ; it is becoming weak ; 
it is found to be hollow ; and there is in it a strange 
inward light, which will turn into a flame of fire, 
and reduce it to ashes, for the good of mankind. 
It cannot fall too soon for the interests of Chris- 
tianity and of man. The heavenly dove is not seen 
in its branches ; even when its imposing foliage 
and a still serenity as of death, seem to invite or 



108 

to indicate her presence. " It is nigh unto cursing, 
whose end is to be burned." 

We often hear it said that apostates are always 
strenuous in opposing the community they have ab- 
jured. This may be a general fact ; but as suck 
it is no argument. The word apostate is commonly 
used in a bad sense alone, and as such it becomes 
a brand with which to stigmatize any man who at 
any time and for any cause renounces any society 
or sect. But the word, meaning to stand off from, 
does of itself imply no criminality : because one 
may certainly apostatize from error as well as truth, 
from evil as well as good, and from folly as well as 
wisdom. When therefore they blame me for the 
mere fact of apostacy from them, they assume the 
very thing which they ought to prove ; namely, that 
their religion is right and not wrong, is true and not 
false, is wise and not foolish. To apostatize from 
what is wrong, is the grace of repentance. Apos- 
tacy is right or wrong in reference to its object alone, 
and inversely as that object is right or wrong. If 
therefore Quakerism be what I think it is, the fact 
of my determined apostacy from it is what I shall 
recollect with pleasure in the day of judgment. 
" Wherefore come out from among them," &c. 
(2 Cor. 6 : 17, 18. Rev. 18:4.) As to the strenuous 
opposition of apostates in all cases, it is probably a 
fact : we have however no concern with it unless it 
can be proved that such are always wrong in pro- 
portion as they are strenuous and because they are 
strenuous. Paul apostatized once for all (he was 
no changeling) from " the Jews' religion ;" and 



109 

they might call him an apostate Jew and apply to 
him the proverb that apostates are always strenuous 
in opposition to the community they have abjured. 
Would that prove their own rectitude or refute his 
arguments 1 Would it prove that he sinned when 
he apostatized from a corrupted, worldly system, 
which was also abandoned of God and execrated 
by mankind, as connected with its degenerate abet- 
tors 1 So Luther apostatized from popery ; and was 
often gratuitously reviled as an apostate by the Ro- 
manists. But if that word is bad in itself then know 
that it may be retorted. Barclay was an apostate, 
He left the Romish church for the society at nearly 
the same age in which I left the society : — and what 
then 1 The inference is that all the talk, in which 
many seem to glory, about apostacy, is a show of 
words without sense — unless it be the sense of 
malignity. But here let it be observed that it re- 
quires moral courage and moral virtue, which for 
ever dare to exemplify, to brave the frown of thou- 
sands in apostatizing from antiquated educational 
error, on the single principle of faith in the testimony 
of God ! It is true in modern as well as in ancient 
days that men often countervail their secret convic- 
tions from mere moral cowardice — they dare not do 
their duty ! John, 12 : 42, 43. There is perhaps 
no sort of pusillanimity at once so common and so 
despicable and so ruinous as this ! 

But admitting the fact of this strenuousness, and 
supposing any case, as that of Paul for example, 
where the apostacy was right, it does not follow 



110 

that the strenuousness is wrong. There are reasons 
why such apostates should be strenuous. 

(1) They are better acquainted with the evils of 
the system than others. Their knowledge is expe- 
rimental as well as theoretical. Their impressions 
are comparatively vivid, their views comparatively 
clear, and their convictions comparatively just. 
Paul's knowledge of Judaism could not, without a 
miracle, have been what it was unless he had been 
one of them. My knowledge of Quakerism could 
never have been what it is, had I not been educated 
a Friend. I know they can say that I did not under- 
stand their sentiments when I was with them ; and 
if they mean that I was ignorant of them in contrast 
with Christianity, that is, ignorant of them as wrong, 
they say truth : for I was ignorant of Christianity. 
Not so, if they mean that I had never heard hun- 
dreds of their preachers with attention and confi- 
dence, read their books, especially George Fox's 
Journal, and understood their doctrine. They may 
say indeed that I do not understand it now, as they 
often have said ; the light may tell them so, as it has 
told them many other things equally credible ; but I 
know that I do understand their system as far as it 
is intelligible, and that I did this in fact before I left 
them. For the rest, let others judge. 

(2) Apostates are more interested than others in 
the explosion of the errors they have renounced. Paul 
often alludes to his own case in illustrating the con- 
dition of the Jews ; he had been one of them, and 
was near the verge of perdition with them ; his 
rescue was wonderful; and his zeal was strenuous, 



Ill 

from this fact, for the conversion of others. Per- 
haps he had unbelieving relatives, or friends and 
intimates, whom he tenderly loved ; and for whom 
he could never have felt so deeply had he not pre- 
viously been of their number. He could appeal to 
God that he had 23 " great heaviness and continual 
sorrow in his heart" on their account. It is rea- 
sonable and natural that sincere converts, from any 
false scheme, should always show their zeal in a 
similar way. 

(3) They are under peculiar obligations. If they 
have peculiar knowledge and peculiar interests, 
they have also peculiar facilities ; and they ought to 
exert a proportionate influence in favor of the truth , 
Who shall attend to the case of their former asso- 
ciates, if they neglect them 1 Do they not owe it to 
the Author of their own illumination in the truth, to 
try to bring others to its blessings l and especially 
them with whom themselves were once associated 1 
Thus I have ever felt it my duty, since the com- 
mencement of my " faith in Christ Jesus " and 
knowledge of " the grace of God in truth," to try 
to do something for Friends ; because, while 1 
knew their sublime self-complacency in religion, I 
knew also their deep ignorance and error in respect 
to the true doctrine of Christ. But there never was 
a people perhaps so inaccessible to all instruction 
not of their own making as are they. They will 
call meetings of other denominations to hear them; 
bat they will never (exceptions are not rules) re- 
turn the homage in kind, by going to hear other 
preachers than their own. The only way then is — 



112 

to publish. This I do: — yet with diffidence, I con- 
fess, in my own powers to perform the difficult ser- 
vice ; but without diffidence, real or professed, in 
regard to the questions, What is truth ? Is Quaker- 
ism Christianity ! Did George Fox jpr each the same 
doctrine icith Christ and the apostles ? With this 
explanation I acknowledge that I am an apostate 
from Quakerism, and strenuous in devising the ex- 
tirpation of the system : — and strenuous also, and 
on the same account, in desiring the salvation of all 
those who are "my brethren and kinsmen accord- 
ing to the flesh." 

I can however adopt the language of Tully on 
the score of charity, as applicable here. Vehe- 
menter me agere fateor, iracunde nego. Omnino 
irasci amicis non temere soleo, ne si merentur qui- 
dem. Sine verborum contumelia a te dissentire 
possum, sine animi summo dolore non possum. 
"For while I confess a peculiar earnestness of 
manner, I must wholly deny malignity of motive. 
In converse with Friends, I am not accustomed 
rashly to incur their resentment ; even when they 
probably deserve the castigation that would lead to 
it. I mav indeed differ from one without contu- 
melious language ; but in the present instance 
not without real anguish of mind." 

It will be a great question doubtless with many, 
What are the motives of the icriter ? Is it not plain 
that this is rather his concern than theirs'? Men 
there are who never seriously set themselves to 
search for the truth ; and yet are often found med- 
dling with the motives of others : especially with 



113 

theirs who aggressively espouse the positive of a 
question in religion, professing a knowledge of the 
truth and a desire to communicate it, for the bene- 
fit of others and the glory of God. Hence many 
will probably neglect, or in character omit, the peru- 
sal of this work, though considerably occupied, it 
may be, in speculation on the motives of the au- 
thor ; where one will be found so wise as to leave 
persons and motives to the arbitration of God, 
while he candidly searches for the principles of 
truth. Rom. 14 : 10-12. With my person and 
motives the public have little concern ; while with 
the matter of the work their concern is incalculable. 
My motives, / know, are supremely important to 
myself; sincemine is the solemn responsibility for 
them " at the judgment-seat of Christ :" and though 
T deem them of little moment to the public apart 
from their influence on the character of this treatise ; 
and though I have generally conceived it to be one 
of the common and sordid arts of false teachers to 
be continually boasting of their good motives, which 
however deceives the hearts of multitudes ; and 
though I have generally written as if it were com- 
paratively of no importance to others what my mo- 
tives were, and indeed none of their business to 
inquire, unless the treatise itself so indicates them 
as to furnish all the evidence of which the case 
admits ; still, I will venture here, to the best of my 
knowledge, frankly and fully to state them : / am 
actuated by a sense of duty to the cause of truth and 
its Author ; of duty to the soids of men, and es- 
pecially to the immortal interests of the people, one 

15 



114 

of whom I was born and educated ; and whose dis- 
tinguishing views I formerly and sincerely believed : 
with the desire of bringing them to see the divinity y 
the fulness, the excellency of the scriptures, as pro- 
perly our highest, holiest, safest rule of religious faith 
and practice — a rule that is disparaged or disclaimed 
only by the policy of the kingdom of darkness. This 
profession will very possibly be impugned. In 
making it, I am sensible of the abuse which may be 
made of it by the adversary. Well I know that 
every breathing man upon the footstool, who re- 
mains unchanged in his native character, is the 
enemy of christians and of Christ. "Behold, I 
send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves." 
And to me it seems not credible that the exterior 
habitude of meekness, with which Quakerism so 
mechanically and so cheaply invests its votaries^ 
can do any thing more for "the natural man" than 
injuriously to misrepresent him to others and himself, 
If it were of use to affirm, never so solemnly, that 
these are my motives, that I have consciously no 
other, and that I beg to have my positions refuted 
rather than my name and person assailed, I could 
easily and would cheerfully make the affirmation. 
But well I know "leviathan is not so tamed." The 
truth too is stubborn and invincible. Presumption 
cannot change, nor authority awe, nor sorcery charm 
it. Hence those who fight with the weapons of truth, 
sincerely forswearing all others, must never allow 
feeling to govern, or sympathy to preponderate, in 
the strife. Otherwise they may conciliate the foe, 
but they lose the cause : the foe is pacified to them ? 



115 

but not to the King, for whom they are engaged. 
Hence it is that severities (as they appear perhaps 
to all who neither know nor love the truth) abound 
in what I have written ; as they more terribly abound 
in the word of God. 

Unhappy indeed is the condition of a lault-finder. 
Yet with some such main intention caima I to the 
present service. If I say, it is ungrateful to my 
feelings — it will be but repeating what every one in 
similar relations has affirmed. But the laws of 
moral and social feeling are immutable. I will say 
the truth ; to me it is disagreeable, it is painful. 
Still, I have no doubt it is necessary. " Necessity 
is laid upon me ; yea, wo is me if I " do not dis- 
charge this duty to the cause of truth. The sur- 
geon that amputates a limb, or pierces an abscess, 
or inflicts any other suffering in the way of his vo- 
cation ; must preserve a steady hand, an equal eye, a 
firm tenacious nerve : nor is his kindness then sus- 
pected; he is not ridiculed, scorned, calumniated 
for his faithfulness. The world acknowledges that 
he willed not the misery, but the cure ; not the pain, 
but the restoration. But, neither mercy, nor jus- 
tice, is commonly done to the polemic. His case 
is trying ; his duty difficult ; his obligations high. 
Who will give him credit for his motives, even if 
they are purely benevolent 1 The vain world, whom 
his argument condemns 1 the errorist, whom it ex- 
poses 1 the reprobate, whom it convicts 1 Men are 
not so fond of seeing their faults, as to thank those 
who help their vision, however honestly. If one 
fail in the difficult attempt, he is condemned ; and 



116 

often, if he succeed, those whose errors he detects 
are pitied and caressed for that reason. Few re- 
alize the interest which all men have in the truth ; 
and hence they as little appreciate the injury of 
error or the necessity of correcting it. Beside, 
men incline generally to resist aggression, seeming 
or real, without reference to equity ; and if one is 
deemed the assailant, they instinctively take part 
with the assailed, and resist him. But let equity be 
honored : and let it be ascertained by a wiser cri- 
terion than mere appearances. Truly, this treatise 
is rather a defence. Friends are the assailants. 
They assail all Christendom. They are the reform- 
ers and the innovators. They denounce all others; 
and that in terms utterly inconsistent with the allow- 
ance of their piety : " hirelings, the world's people," 
and such like epithets, abound in their authentic wri- 
tings. I never said that they have all no piety ; I only 
say that it is too much mystified, where it possibly 
exists, to be recognised by the church of God ; that 
their system recognises no denomination but their 
own ; and that ordinarily I have little confidence in the 
piety of a Friend, whatever other qualities of gene- 
ral worth I may, and freely do, accord to him. God 
is my witness that there is no affectation in this 
averment — I am painfully " shut up to " it by moral 
necessity and all the evidence that affects the case. 
I never said that they would none of them be saved, 
but rather the contrary : but then I have said, and 
do say, that the principles of salvation are immuta- 
ble and very little understood by them ; that they are 
often mistaken, and egregiously misstated, by their 



117 

inspired ministers, especially of the tender sex ; that 
their theological system involves much fundamental 
error, and is " another gospel, which is not ano- 
ther" — as, if a 'will o' the wisp' should aspire to 
be the sun ; truly it would be " another sun, which 
is not another ;" that their views are bewitching to 
all that are not established in " the truth as it is in 
Jesus," and destructive in an awful degree ; that 
God requires his people not only to hold the truth, 
but to " hold it fast," and in modern phrase to go 
the whole in its due support ; that there can be no 
such thing as religious compromise with error more 
than with sin ; that even the religious public ordina- 
rily misunderstand it; that Quakerism must dis- 
solve and disappear as " the baseless fabric of a 
vision," since nothing but truth is immortal, and 
with respect to his own kingdom hath the Savior 
said, " Every plant which my heavenly Father hath 
not planted, shall be rooted up ;" that in America 
the exotic declines, since here are none of the storms 
of persecution, and I sincerely hope never will be, 
to give it vigor by endurance and circulate its genial 
fluids by extraneous action ; that it is sophisticated 
in its very texture and soul, and will make a spe- 
cious sophist mainly of any vaunted reasoner who 
espouses it ; that it is mystical, and as such heathen- 
ish and false, Christianity having many sublimities 
indeed, — but nothing properly mystical in its whole 
constitution ; and that, leaving persons with God, 
and contending as we ought for principles, and that 
valiantly, and not as when " a standard-bearer faint- 
eth," we ought to inscribe on our banners the word 



118 

Christianity, and resist for ever the counterfeit of 
earth in favor of the current coin of heaven. Let 
earthlings oppose the sentiment, if they will ! their 
retribution flies swiftly and predominates for ever ! 

Respecting the capital sophisms of the Quakers, 
especially in the argumentation of Barclay, I would 
specify one or two. 

1. To argue from the historical or noted abuse of 
any thing, to its disuse as both expedient and 
obligatory on that account : instead of arguing 
from the proper nature of the thing as right or 
wrong ; as sanctioned by divine authority or frau- 
dulently imposed by men ; as natively tending to 
goodness or productive of harm ; as intrinsically a 
part of Christianity or surreptitiously and supersti- 
tiously appended to it. This is the very acme of 
logical absurdity and sin ! 

This capital sophism, with which the Apology 
abounds, is perhaps the most absurd and abomina- 
ble in principle that can be found in all the circuits of 
nominal religion, in all the errors of spurious logic, or 
throughout the encyclopedia of universal heresy. 
According to it, we have only to abuse in order to abo- 
minate a divine institution ; while we graduate its evil 
exactly in proportion to its abuse. On this principle 
the religion of Christ maybe legitimately proved to be 
the worst system that ever claimed the confidence of 
men — incomparably the worst ; since no other sys- 
tem has ever been, as all admit, so much, so wan- 
tonly, so universally abused ! On the same principle 
the Divine Being himself — but, I forbear! 

The man who does not utterly for sice ar this prin- 



119 

ciple, and that at once, intelligently and cordially ; 
the man who acts upon it at all, either knowingly 
or doatingly, either confessedly or — what is both 
much more common and much more mischievous — 
covertly, such a man is utterly disqualified for the 
business of fair argumentation on any subject ; and 
on the superlative subject of religion is he qualified 
only to disparage, corrupt and destroy it ! 

The principle directly opposite to the sophism, the 
true and proper one, the one dear to the mind exact- 
ly in proportion to its wisdom and its goodness, is to 
judge of things according to their nature ; to call their 
abuses abuses, and as such to condemn and avoid 
them ; and to graduate the evil of the abuse in exact 
proportion to the goodness of its subject ! and con- 
versely, to value an evil thing as one neither liable 
to abuse, nor ordinarily capable of it : while it should 
be our aim directly to rescue religion, in her own 
celestial beauty, from the wrongs and calumnies of 
her enemies ; and resolutely to view her heavenly 
countenance mainly as reflected in her own perfect 
mirror, the scriptures of inspiration. 

Let any man who has capacity and honesty, and 
a very little of both is sufficient, read Barclay with 
the rigid application of this principle to all his sen- 
tences ; resisting the fascination of his inspired 
' audacity ; and see how much his argument is every 
where indebted to the sophism! Especially when 
he speaks of the gospel ministry and the two sacra- 
ments ; to mention no others. How it avails him, 
and blinds his reader, to inveigh against — what no 
way touches the question — the vices, sordid motives, 



i 



120 

and abominable practices, of some, say many, of the 
clergy ; the dissensions, angry controversy, and mad- 
dened blood-shed, that have arisen about preceden- 
cy, transubstantiation, the cup to the laity, and a 
thousand other matters of human abuse, which no 
way affect our obligations ; except that they all be- 
come stronger from the premises, to resist abuses 
and to exemplify Christianity as Christ and the apos- 
tles gave it to us — and not to despoil it of all its 
peculiar characteristics till nothing be left, except 
what no man can abuse ! 

Barclay is fond of the implication that the abuses 
as abominations, which he alleges, are abominated 
only by himself and his confederates of the so- 
ciety : though he oftener declaims than adduces au- 
thentic facts ; yet he has no right to imply that he 
is alone with his people, in so loving Christianity as 
to be equally alone in execrating its corrupters. 
Love for Christianity is my sole reason for disliking 
him and his fraternity. To this sophism, I shall 
have frequent occasion to advert in the progress 
of these pages. 

2. Another capital sophism deserves a place, 
which I am rather at a loss to designate. It consists 
in a rapid and daring application to all christians, 
and especially — of course — to themselves, of any 
thing and every thing contained in the Bible, with- 
out considering the laics of application, or the ne- 
cessity of discriminating, or the native sense of the 
passage where it occurs, or the misery of mistake in 
matters of infinite moment to all. Particularly, it 
makes almost nothing of the perfect a>"d solitary 



121 

eminence of the apostles ; it discriminates little 
or not at all between what was spoken or promised 
to them exclusively, and what is equally appropriate 
to all believers ; it seems to assume that miracles 
and inspiration (the latter necessarily) were not all 
confined to the first century, or merely adapted 
to the initials of the last and most perfect dispensa- 
tion, and so having performed their office and fully 
accomplished the cause which they were given to 
subserve, have passed away with the occasion that 
required them ; while vital religion, quite another 
thing, reaps the perpetual harvest of their useful- 
ness, and flourishes without their repetition. It im- 
plies that those things are revealed for imitation, 
rather than faith. 

But let us reason the case. The apostles wrought 
miracles, and for this they were expressly trained 
by their Master. Directions, prohibitions, and pro- 
mises of a peculiar nature, were hence propounded 
for them. If the Quakers are just as much inspired, 
then indeed all the furniture above referred to is 
equally their own. But mind ! all or none is the 
word. For, if some and not all appertains to them, 
then there must be discrimination; then it is not 
enough to show what is written in the scriptures, as 
having been spoken to the apostolic disciples, since 
the passages may refer to them alone ; then it may 
be delusion and sin for Friends to apply, as they 
do, to themselves, whatever was said to the apos- 
tles. If however all, saving mere local circum- 
stances, appertains to them, then let us see them 
dispose of such passages as these, which, if not 

16 



122 

confined to the persons of the apostles, are confined 
wholly to the age of the apostles. " And these signs," 
&c. Mark, 16 : 17, 18. Luke, 17 : 5, 6. This last, 
we think, respects the faith of miracles alone ; or 
the faith necessary to work a miracle ; and which 
it behoved them to understand, who were soon to 
be put upon that perilous service in the sight of 
maddened adversaries. Mark, 13 : 11. Such pas- 
sages abound in the New Testament and afford a 
fine paradise for sincere visionaries. The Friends, 
those of them who are not degenerate formalists 
and nothingarians, are distinguished for this devout 
insanity ; though they are not alone in its fits and 
excesses. It has been the partial and occasional 
error of millions of christians, who have in general- 
avoided it. Ultimately, it is in principle the very 
thronal error of the papacy. The fact is, the 

APOSTLES, AS SUCH, HAD NO SUCCESSORS ; SUPER- 
SEDED often, they have been succeeded never ; 
while the assumption of apostolical powers, apos- 
tolical derivation, and apostolical succession, in this 
style of feudal reasoning and military commission 
and romanizing pride, has been the bane of visible 
Christianity since the apostles " fell asleep." It were 
well if an assumption so ignorant and criminal had 
been totally confined to the pale of the papacy. 
For one I am as much opposed as Barclay, to an 
earthly politico-ecclesiastical hierarchy ; but, while 
I see this shameful error at the very basis of many 
organized corruptions, I can see the same principle^ 
a little spiritualized and of a more tranquil aspect, 
arrogating the commission and the honors of the 



123 

apostles of the Lamb, in the persons of Barclay 
and his associates, his predecessors and successors 
of the foxian school, for nearly two centuries. It 
is enough for sober christians to belong to a church 
whose profession is pure, whose officers are " sound 
in the faith," and whose practice is humbly in coinci- 
dence ; enough to be " built upon the foundation of 
apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being 
the chief corner-stone ; in whom all the building 
fitly framed together, groweth unto a holy temple in 
the Lord ; in whom they also are builded together, 
for a habitation of God through the Spirit." To 
these foundations of divine sanction and certain im- 
movability, the christian of intelligence would be 
very sorry to add, " and built also upon George 
Fox, Robert Barclay, Sarah Grubb, and a thousand 
other prophets and prophetesses, who have been 
recently commissioned and inspired, exactly as were 
Moses and Isaiah, Matthew and Paul, and all the 
other writers of the holy scripture !" It is however 
much more evident that the whole massive struc- 
ture of Quakerism rests on Fox, Barclay, and others, 
than that it touches " the foundation of apostles and 
prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cor- 
ner-stone." Wo be to it, if it be found in eternity 
not on this foundation ! " For other foundation can 
no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ !" 
" For their rock is not as our rock, even our enemies 
themselves being judges." 

As to the way in which Friends manage to resist 
the appeal ; Why do you not pluck up trees by the 
roots and transport them into the midst of the ant- 



124 

arctic ocean ; why do you not take up venomous 
serpents and fondle them with impunity ; why not 
drink poison or other deadly thing without preju- 
dice to health 1 Their way of rejoinder we know, 
having often listened to the responses of the oracle 
within, on that article : " Why, dear Friends, it is 
plain to the vision of my mind that nothing is want- 
ing but faith. The Almighty is the same yesterday, 
and to-day, and for ever. Be it unto you according 
to your faith. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall 
not be established. His hand is not shortened, nor 
his ear heavy: he can both hear and save. But 
where is your faith ? Alas ! in what days do we 
live ?" True ! degenerate times. Not a soul to be 
found on the earth who can, for example, transport 
the Alleghany mountains one mile to the east of 
their present lodgment, or even remove a bramble 
bush that grows on its breast six inches from the 
position of its local obstinacy. No faith to be 
found ! And what is to become of us all 1 He that 
believeth not, said the Savior, shall be damned! 

Who can doubt the necessity that preachers of 
religion should be apt to teach ? who can knowingly 
approve of those, whose a priori illusion, resulting 
from its parent illusion of " inward objective mani- 
festations in the heart," so metamorphoses and 
mangles the doctrine of Christ 1 and at the same 
time removes them, (instead of the mountains,) to 
the very antipodes of sober sense 1 The Spirit of 
God denounces those busy teachers, who need them- 
selves to be taught ; " understanding neither what 
they say, nor whereof they affirm !" Now, as they 



125 

assert when they answer, I shall just take the same 
liberty ; and assert that their light is darkness, their 
confidence confusion, and their solution utterly igno- 
rant and utterly false ! The reason is — that what 
was said to the apostles, as such, and all that related 
to their working of miracles, is formally appli- 
cable to them alone, and of use to us only in a 
way of instruction, advertisement, and sober accom- 
modation. Other sayings of God apply to us, and 
are objects of faith to christians of our age ; our want 
of faith, toward objects that properly relate to us, 
may be rebuked by what was said to apostles in other 
relations : and this is what I mean by the use of 
sober accommodation under the guidance of the great 
moral truths of Christianity. Faith is indeed suffi- 
ciently and quite criminally infirm, even in true 
christians ; but if we were all as destitute of it, as 
we are of all attained or attainable power to remove 
trees and mountains, the plain consequence were 
that no true church exists on the earth, and we shall 
all perish for ever ! Let them father the consequence, 
who hold the doctrine ! and let every Friend, who 
cannot perform these prodigies, "examine himself 
whether he be in the faith !" — for I can inform him 
that it is possible to be a true christian without them : 
and more, that " many will say to Christ in that day, 
Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name 1 
and in thy name have cast out devils 1 and in thy 
name done many wonderful works 1 And then will 
he profess unto them, I never knew you : depart 
from me ye that work iniquity." Judas may head 
this forlorn company, as their " chief speaker ;" for 



126 

we know he never departed from iniquity, though 
there is some evidence that he wrought miracles : 
we know this, because (1) there is not a particle of 
evidence that he ever had any piety, that Christ 
ever knew him; and (2) there is direct evidence to 
the contrary. Said Jesus, " Have not I chosen you 
twelve 1 and one of you is a devil. He spake of 
Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon : for he it was that 
should betray him, being one of the twelve." John, 
6: 70, 71. Matt. 10: 4,8. He called Judas "a 
devil " in the early stages of his ministry ; nor did 
he then first learn his character, as if in thus asso- 
ciating him, in his deep providential wisdom, with 
the others, he had mistaken that character. The 
Son of God was not used to mistakes : " because 
he knew all men ; and needed not that any should 
testify of man, for he knew what was in man." Be- 
sides, it is expressly said, that " Jesus knew from the 
beginning who they were that believed not, and who 
should betray him." John 2 : 24, 25. 6 : 64. How 
perilous to the soul is the darkness of the inward 
light ! If it were a mere absurdity, as innocent as 
it is silly or sincere, I should say dream on — at least 
should not write a book to arouse it with the order, 
" Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, 
and Christ shall give thee light." I will just add, 
there is more force in the frequent averment that 
Jesus knew the traitor (in one sense, as he knew him 
not, in another and a nobler sense) from the begin- 
ning, that he certainly seems never to have been 
either known or suspected by the eleven ! "Lord is 
it 1 1 so said they all." No one said, Is it not Judas? 



127 

" Some men's sins are open beforehand, going before 
to judgment;" as in the case of the openly profane 
and profligate : " and some men they follow after ;" 
as in the case of saintly seducers and hypocrites, 
whose real character is revealed (like that of Judas) 
late, or only in eternity. " But evil men and se- 
ducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and 
being deceived." 

I have just adverted to a passage of scripture, and 
used it too in its correct import, which may as well 
here be considered more at large. Friends abuse 
it very sincerely, if not universally. If they knew its 
meaning, it would mock their inspiration terribly. 
It is this. " Some men's sins are open beforehand, 
going before to judgment; and some men they fol- 
low after. Likewise also the good works of some 
are manifest beforehand ; and they that are 
otherwise cannot be hid." 1 Tim. 5 : 24, 25. The 
original word 7tpo$yifa$ means simply — manifest, 
palpable, clear as day, not to be mistaken. It is 
rendered in the passage, 'open beforehand,' and 
' manifest beforehand.' It occurs only in a third 
place in the New-Testament, Heb. 7 : 14, and is 
there better 24 rendered "evident." The passage 
then means in substance this ; Beware, Timothy, 
in ordaining officers or receiving members or super- 
vising the general interests of the church ; beware 
of specious appearances. Some men indeed could 
not deceive you : they are too palpably wicked ; 
their sins are notorious; their lives are scandalous ; 
you and all men know them, and so anticipate 
for them very correctly the sentence of eternal 



128 

judgment, to which their enormities proceed, as it 
were, before them ; expecting their arrival and the 
retribution then to be displayed against them. 
But there is another class of wicked men of a de- 
scription precisely opposite. They are good look- 
ing, celestializing, imposing hypocrites. You must 
be wary and penetrating to see them. Their sins 
are more covert ; less manifest ; not preceding them 
but " following after" to judgment. Beware then 
of appearances ; and lay hands suddenly on no man. 
Not knowing the sense of this text or the words 
of the original, Friends spiritualize it into a very 
good meaning indeed ! so that what the apostle 
used to denote flagitious profligates or open con- 
temners of goodness, their inspiration interprets to 
mean a high and holy spiritual experience which 
Friends of an exalted character, or saints alone, 
realize. Often have I heard their preachers insist, 
with all the unction of holy sonorousness, on the 
necessity and blessedness of this rare experience ! 
Saying substantially as follows : " Ah ! my Friends, 
you must come to know this for yourselves. Can you 
say in truth and from your own assured expe- 
rience, ' My sins are open beforehand, going 
before to judgment V Happy those who can adopt 
that language of the apostle ! They know of a sure- 
ty how good and how pleasant it is ! O the ex- 
cellency of this experience ! I say again, my dear 
Friends, have you ever known it for yourselves 1 
Be assured that without it you are only as ' sound- 
ing brass or a tinkling cymbal.' I can testify 
to the excellency of the experience, from certain 



129 

knowledge and with undoubted clearness made 
manifest by the inward Teacher to my soul. O how 
much better than all the learning of the schools ! 
How great the ' learned ignorance ' that knows it 
not, and yet affects to preach unto others in the 
learning of the letter ! As I sat in the stillness and 
solemnity of all flesh, the word was sounded through 
the secret chambers of my heart, in the present 
meeting: and it was made manifest to my inner 
man that I must communicate it for the benefit of 
others. I deliver it as a message from the Lord to 
some of you. To whom it appertaineth I know 
not ; it was not revealed to me. But sure I am, 
my very dear Friends, that some soul will feel that 
its state is reached by what the Master gave me to 
communicate." Friends will probably think that I 
am now sinning against conscience, if not commit- 
ting the unpardonable sin, by thus exposing them. 
My motive is with the Lord. As to the facts I have 
declared, their truth is the most venomous thing in 
the statement. Often, often have I heard this sub- 
lime experience recommended ; I could narrate 
several pretty facts in this connection — but I for- 
bear ; having answered my object by rescuing the 
true sense of the passage from their inspiration, 
and giving to the impartial reader another facility of 
ascertaining the soundness of their pretensions, in 
connection with their incomparable sublimity ! I 
think, however, that to any judicious and just be- 
holder, we may here apply the passage to Quakerism 
itself personified, with conviction of its righteous- 
ness : " O degrading counterfeit ! O ignorant and 

17 



130 

vaporing cheat ! O dark and dreary meteor of light ! 
thy sins are manifest beforehand, going before to 
judgment. Thy inspiration is the veriest folly in 
the world. It is the dishonor of God and the eon- 
fusion of men. It is piety to detest thy character, 
resist thy usurpation, and open the prison-doors to 
them that are bound in the miserable caverns of 
thy influence." More than once have / been so- 
lemnly asked, since I left them and before, " if my 
sins had ever been opened beforehand^" &c. I hope 
to be spared the trial of a repetition of the pious 
concern, from henceforth i 

3. A third sophism, that characterizes their rea- 
soning and results— how I pity them — from a sense 
of consistency in maintaining the prerogatives of 
oracular inspiration and the diapason of religious 
sing-song, is this — whatever breaks upon the mind 
in connection with a text, is the inspired solution of 
its meaning, is the true and orthodox interpretation. 
Hence it is that their preachers, with their prince 
Barclay himself, (the most rational Friend that ever 
thought himself inspired,) are the worst interpreters 
in the world ! There are two reasons for this: (1) 
their liability to be wrong ; resulting from their dis- 
dain of sober investigation ; their general ignorance 
of the laws of true, and the facilities of false, inter- 
pretation ; their religious dread of any helps that 
appear learned and that savor of the wicked school- 
men ; their real and educated destitution of the best 
helps in judgment ; and the force of system and of 
sect prejudicing their perceptions ; and (2) their ne- 
cessary and sublime self-commitment to defend their 



131 

positions — all the sparks that they have kindled* 
This is only consistency ! Who would not defend 
his positions as infallible, who believed that they 
were all given by inspiration of God ; and so were 
proper codicils to the volume of prophets and apos- 
tles as in common " the oracles of God !" Hence 
they cannot confess error, without blowing up their 
system. They ought to be right indeed, so right 
that miracles could add nothing to the evidence of 
their infallibility ; otherwise there may be inevitable 
perdition in the necessity under which they lay 
themselves of defending at all events the positions 
of their preaching ! To be incorrigibly wrong, on 
such a central matter of one's creed, is just as ill 
omened to the welfare of the soul as it seems pos- 
sible to conceive ! To confess error, when proved, 
is the privilege of a freeman of Jesus Christ. He is 
willing to own himself wiser to-day than he was 
yesterday. 

The instances of false interpretation that abound 
in the sayings and writings of their preachers are 
" so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and 
as the sand which is by the sea- shore innumerable." 
They quote in a loose, hap-hazard, and often most 
erring way in point of fact. They educe a doc- 
trine from a text that never was in it ; though it 
might have been in them. They infer from premi- 
ses what was never contained in them. They 
give to their own imaginings, beside the unction 
i and sanction of the oracle, a certain homogeneousness 
of the system which the text never had before, and 
which is both specious and satisfactory to all ; then 



132 

they frequently exclaim ; " and now, Friends, only 
behold it ! was any thing ever plainer in the world I 
How rational, how excellent, how consolatory! 
What need of the vain learning of the world, to 
unravel what hath been revealed to sucklings and 
to babes?" And thus the whole meeting are con- 
vinced ; all bowed under the influence ; all gathered 
into the clear light and life of the spirit ! And what 
abhorred impiety to breathe a breath against all that 
incumbent glory ! i" know how horribly profane 
such an aggression would be held by them : and 
yet I very calmly declare it the spell of a more 
horrible delusion ! 

Take one more instance of false interpretation : 
et cr imine ub uno, disce omnes. 25 It occurs in the 
formal statement of the fifth proposition of the 
Apology, " concerning the universal redemption 
by Christ, and also the saving and spiritual 
light, wherewith every man is enlightened" Its 
object is to prove the universality of the light. It 
occurs in the quotation of the following passage ; 
" Nor is it less universal than the seed of sin, being 
the purchase of his death, who tasted death for 
every man : for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ 
all shall be made alive." 1 Cor. 15 : 22. 

These specimens I have purposely selected, as 
being suited to my object, without being outra- 
geously bad or as exceptionable as others. They 
are as decent instances as can be found. One re- 
mark here — we ought to give no quarters to an inter- 
preter of inspired resources, whatever may be due 
in clemency to others. It is bad enough when an 



133 

uninspired preacher mistakes the meaning of scrip- 
ture and misrepresents the mind of God : espe- 
cially, as is generally the case, if it occur from a 
criminal carelessness in dealing with his words. 
But an inspired blunderer — what a monster ! shall 
we spare him 1 

Though these remarks principally affect the lat- 
ter quotation ; yet, with respect to the former, Heb. 
2 : 9, as I am persuaded he mistakes its meaning, I 
will remark, that the word man is not in the origi- 
nal, and the strict rendering of imp 7tavTo$ is for 
each, or, on account of every one, as Dr. Macknight 
has it ; thus, " that he should taste death for every 
one of them." Now the connection evinces that the 
apostle is speaking of the church, and not of the 
world ; hence " they who are sanctified, many sons 
brought unto glory, saying, I will declare thy name 
unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I 
sing praise unto thee," are the associated expres- 
sions of the context. I do not think therefore that 
that passage proves universality in any relation, 
with respect to the species of man. I indeed be- 
lieve that the atonement, made by Jesus Christ on 
the cross, is in its own nature amply sufficient for 
all mankind, 26 and that nothing but their voluntary 
pride and obstinacy of unbelief prevail as the means 
of exclusion to any one who hears the gospel ; that 
the atonement is designedly large enough for all, 
and applicable to all, but applied only to them that 
believe ! that it is offered to all ; to them that re- 
ject, as really, as consistently, and as sincerely, as 
to them that accept it; and that to reject it is a 



134 

deep and damning sin, which any man indulges at 
the peril of his soul, in a matter where his guilt is 
manifest and his doom revealed : still, I do not be- 
lieve that any such doctrine is taught in the text 
now under consideration. Am I right in this 1 How 
then does it consist with the views of Barclay or 
the use to which he has applied it? 

The text from 1 Cor. 15 : 22, is however a worse 
perversion. " For as in Adam all die, even so in 
Christ shall all be made alive." He plainly here 
infers or sees clearly that the word die refers to spi- 
ritual death. This will be for a moment admitted. 
I ask then if its manifest opposite made alive means 
not shall be spiritually quickened and born again ? 
If so, the passage as Barclay interprets it, proves 
universal salvation ! I will not take upon me to say 
how much such a view would afflict the sentiments 
of Friends : I am safer in saying that such a view 
is no more the native sense or proper meaning of 
the passage than if he had used it to prophesy what 
shall occur in heaven a million of ages hence or 
had told us that it means — a certain youth of Scotch 
nativity, French education, Romish predilections, 
and very respectable talents, was converted to the 
sentiments of George Fox, and inspired to write a 
book as good as the Bible, if not better, called Bar- 
clay's Apology, 

The word die, in the passage, is to be literally in- 
terpreted, meaning nothing but natural death — as 
it is improperly called : for death was a part of our 
sentence as sinners, Gen. 3 : 19, which has been 
executed from the beginning. But what if we "all 



135 

die" in Adam? we "shall all be made alive 35 in 
Christ. The dominion of death shall be destroyed 
and his vast prison depopulated. 

Those ruins shall be built again, 
And all that dust shall rise. 

" There shall be a resurrection of the dead, both 
of the just and unjust." Acts, 24 : 15. John, 5 : 28 ? 
29. 1 Thess. 4 : 13-18. Matt. 10 : 28. " The re- 
surrection of the just" will be ineffably and consum- 
mately glorious ; and this doctrine, in connection 
with the general subject, it is the formal object of 
the apostle throughout this wonderful chapter to 
prove beyond all contradiction. The passage con- 
cerned is in perfect keeping with all the other 
parts : while the importance of the doctrine is such — - 
a doctrine denied by " some " at Corinth — that 
the apostle has declared it to be just fund amen - 
tal to Christianity! The great argument of the 
apostle for the resurrection of our bodies is the 
fact that Christ' 's body rose, ascended, and is sub- 
limed and glorified for ever in heaven. His posi- 
tion is — that our bodies shall rise just as certainly ; 
and the bodies of saints, to everlasting beauty and 
beatitude. He considers the position however in 
reference mainly to the resurrection of the just. In 
proof of this view we might quote the whole chap- 
ter, and innumerable other passages of genuine 
inspiration. 1 Cor. 15 : 12-22. 

To many readers this argumentation of mine 
will appear unnecessarily minute. But my object 
shall soon appear, to explain and vindicate the 



13G 

seeming prolixity. It is two fold ; (1) to evince 
that Barclay has miserably mistaken the plain and 
certain meaning of the passage, when he spirituali- 
zes the ideas of dying and being made alive, and 
then applies them to prove — yes, to prove his doc- 
trine of " universal redemption by Christ, and also 
the saving and spiritual light, wherewith every man 
is enlightened !" I call this most miserable and 
guilty blundering, which, in a man of scholarship 
and professed inspiration, who writes a voluminous 
polemical tractate, ought to be universally appre- 
ciated. He addresses his book to " the CLERGY 
of what sort soever, unto whose hands these may 
come ; but more particularly to the doctors, pro- 
fessors and students of divinity in the universities 
and schools of Great Britain, whether prelatical, 
presbyterian, or any other :" a book abounding with 
just such wild, rash and false interpretation of scrip- 
ture passages ; that makes a great show of scrip- 
ture authorities and references, while on examina- 
tion it appears that his very proof-texts are (I do 
not say intentionally, but I do say, through a 
criminal and hurtful assumption that he is inspir- 
ed) wrested from their original meaning — and 
wrested with the greatest and the most imposing 
confidence ! The imposition is very grateful (not of 
course as such) to Friends ; and they think that, 
apart from the oracular wisdom of their school- 
learned prophet, his positions are all fortified by 
scripture, and not to be answered by the "hire- 
lings " to whom they were in defiance addressed. 
Many of them boast to this day, in their deep do- 



137 

tage, that the Apology has never been answered and 
is truly unanswerable : — a very convenient sentiment 
for " the Society." I do not examine other texts, 
only because I think it unnecessary here to pursue 
the subject. To correct all his wrong and wretched 
misinterpretations of scripture, for which — observe 
— I do not oppugn his sincerity or charge him with 
conscious fraud, were an invidious and an elabo- 
rate task, to say nothing of the mass of paper it 
would require. Any man of sober sense may make 
an inference by the way, in respect to the validity of 
his claims to inspiration ! Inspiration is itself a mis- 
erable thing if it cannot interpret its own words, 
previously uttered and recorded ! What could more 
tend to make infidels by thousands and millions, 
in respect to all the claims of Christianity, than to 
represent its basis to be a dark, self-contradictory, 
mystical and blundering inspiration \ — such an in- 
spiration exactly as that of Friends in all ages since 
the time of Cromwell ! 

But I have a further though a kindred ob- 
ject in urging this matter of interpretation. (2) 
Friends do none of them believe in the doctrine of 
the resurrection of the body. To some readers this 
will be strange even to astonishment. Very few, 
who believe that doctrine, on the simple authority of 
scripture, could imagine that it was any part of 
the darkness of the inward light boldly to deny 
and denounce a fact so plainly revealed in the ora- 
cles of God, and there made so fundamental to 
Christianity ! But it is even so ! I venture the as- 
sertion that a Friend who believes it is a rarer phc- 

18 



138 

nomenon than an eclipse of the moon. Rightly 
to believe it, according to the sure testimony of 
God, is icell nigh impossible to any man who does 
not believe in the paramount authority of scripture ; 
and to no man more incorrigibly than to a Friend. 
They call it a gross conception, a heathen notion, a 
piece of folly, and a thing impossible. They use 
the stale arguments of mere deism against it. I 
have heard especially 27 one of their preachers most 
scornfully declaim against it : — any mere hearer 
would have thought that his sermon was the libel- 
lous harangue of a deist opposing revelation, 
Though young (as a few weeks only) in the know- 
ledge of God, and then a member of the society, I 
longed to say unto them, " ye do err, not knowing 
the scriptures, nor the power of God ! why should 
it be thought a thing incredible with you that God 
should raise the dead I Be not deceived ; evil com- 
munications corrupt good manners. Awake to 
righteousness, and sin not ; for some have not the 
knowledge of God : I speak this to your shame- 
But some man will say, How are the dead raised 
up 1 and with what body do they come I Thou fool, 
that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die. 
Who art thou, O man, that repliest against God P 
Matt. 22 : 29. Acts, 26 : 8. 1 Cor. 15 : 33-36. 
Rom. 9 : 20. 

This topic is immensely important. Christianity 
stands or falls with the doctrine of the resurrection 
of the body ! That man ought to doubt his piety 
who can look at the heresy of Friends on this article 
and feel indifferent. Is it nothing that the hopes 



139 

of the whole world or those of them that are alone 
legitimate, should be ruined by a heavenly-looking 
heresy that sinks their common basis into nothing 1 
I would just as soon turn atheist outright or — what 
is the same thing — sadducee entire, as fellowship 
any man who dares to violate the only hope of men 
by denying the scriptural account of the resurrection 
of both soul and body ! 

The word avacftadtg translated resurrection oc- 
curs nearly fifty times in the New Testament. Its 
proper meaning is re-existence, or a standing up 
afterward of those who are here prostrated by 
death. It refers to the soul and body both ; yet so 
essentially that the Bible treats those who deny 
either as denying both, and so denounces them as 
reprobates. Friends do not, I know, deny the an- 
astasis or resurrection of the soul. They believe, 
in form as we do, that the soul goes to its allotment 
immediately at death. So far they believe pro- 
fessedly the scripture doctrine of the resurrection. 
Thus Christ taught it in the case of the patriarchs, 
whose bodies are not yet raised, but who " sleep in 
Jesus," by quoting a passage frbm " the scripture," 
and then declaring, " God is not the God of the 
dead, but of the living." But not a Friend — far 
from it — believes in the gross conception that the 
body shall rise ! This point, except by some pretty 
certain implications, Barclay wholly omits. I have 
read, his book often and much ; and on one occasion 
lately read it regularly through ; but remember no 
sentence in which he formally touches the subject. 
This was, I must think, policy ! Few suspected 



140 

him to deny what he did not discuss ; and fewer 
still would mark an omission that was not by them 
anticipated. Their blank infidelity here ought to 
be known. This single but important matter is to 
me proof positive that they are all deluded by some 
spirit that rules their darkness. 

They do indeed use the word, passingly, in re- 
ference to Christ, and even claim to believe the fact 
of him ; as when they give out one of their best 
aspects to the public, speaking of the " birth, life, 
crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension," of the Re- 
deemer. But farther than this I never knew them 
go. If any authentic treatise of their authors con- 
tains it, I never saw, I never heard from one of 
them, a declaration that " all that are in their 
graves" shall "come forth" in the last day at the 
word of Christ. If it is one of their 'orthodox' theses, 
how happened the "Apology" to forget to mention 
it 1 Was it less important than the " plain lan- 
guage," &c l or did inspiration lose its self-posses- 
sion in the authorship of that lucid volume 1 I be- 
lieve verily that I am uttering the truth, when I say, 
they are either utterly ignorant or utterly infidel on 
the point. And very cardinal is this, not only abso- 
lutely, but as a matter of test in the controversy ; for 
no man living believes the doctrine, except simply 
on the authority of scripture ; and it is a doctrine 
not at all peculiar to any denomination of christians. 
What kind of a homogeneous inspiration then is 
that of Friends, that leads them not to know it, to 
disbelieve it, or forget or deny it ? I say again, it is 
a test matter ; it is a demonstration that confounds 



141 

for ever their high and false pretensions ! I know 
indeed that in Sewel, Gough, Penn, and others, the 
word is used, and reference had to its general im- 
port. But how brief, passing, inconclusive ! It may 
mean (and it occurs very rarely even thus) that Christ 
rose from the dead — and not that the whole species 
shall rise also. I have heard the doctrine, as chris- 
tians hold it, often disclaimed and ridiculed by 
Friends of different classes, long before the schism. 
Mosheim signalizes their denial of the resurrection 
of the dead, as one of the known and central attri- 
butes of the heresy. So do other authors, and those 
of the first respectability. Here the reader may 
inquire, "Why, if Quakerism is Christianity, has it 
been so doubted, impeached, denounced, by wise 
and holy men in all ages and places since its rise I 
The men who have been its characteristic oppugners, 
are the first in the evangelical world, especially in 
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries ; and they 
are all agreed in exploding it, as a sophistical delu- 
sion and an impious deceit. Says Dr. Owen, among 
other solemn and pertinent declarations, " Sin will 
not be mortified by the power of their light icithin, 
nor by their resolutions, nor by any of their austere 
outward appearances, nor peculiar habits or looks, 
which in this matter are openly pharisaical." He 
says that in his day they only gratified deceitfully 
the impulses of sin, by "exciting and provoking 
themselves to exceed all others in clamors, railings, 
evil speakings, reproaches, calumnies, and malicious 
treating of those who dissented from them, without 
the least discovery of a heart filled with kindness 



142 

and benignity unto mankind, or love unto any 
but themselves." And this is a specimen of the 
common sentiment. 

I cannot leave this matter without remarking the 
power of education, especially with Friends ! Their 

MODE OF EDUCATION IS THE MAKING AND THE KEEPING 

and the secret of their sect. They subdue the 
infant mind and awe the infant conscience, with the 
direct rays of the inward light. They identify all 
divinity and right, in the associations of their chil- 
dren, with the light within and its friendly fruits. 
Here the spell commences that " grows with their 
growth and strengthens with their strength." In- 
vestigation is much akin to scepticism and so is 
devoutly precluded : — but what worse scepticism it 
is to suppose that investigation could rase the foun- 
dation of our faith ! They must take every thing 
for granted or see it in the light ! They must wear 
a ridiculous cut and color of clothes, such as are or- 
thodox or common to the clanship ; and use the plain 
language, and act like Friends : and then if they 
feel awkward and foolish ; if their garb appear ridi- 
culous to themselves ; if their manners expose them 
to jeering and affront ; if they are insolently struck 
(as I have often been) in the street by worthless boys 
and cursed as " a Quaker ;" if their effeminate holy 
whine is profanely mocked — as it often is by saucy 
passengers ; and if a thousand other inconveniences 
accrue ; especially if they are sometimes asked for 
one good reason for such singularity in gratuitous 
opposition to mankind, they must just bear it all for 
righteousness' sake ; not be afraid of the cross, but 



143 

remember early friends, how much more they 
endured in the same cause ! Now, much of this, 
which they call "a guarded education," is just the 
worst kind of sorcery. It is fascination and religious 
tyrannizing over the blighted attributes of mind ! 
It is a system exactly calculated to prostrate every 
noble, courageous and manly sentiment ; and to 
transmute a fine] ingenuous boy into a sorry, sly, 
and often simulating creature in the form of man. 

'Tis liberty alone that gives the flower 

Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume ; 

And we are weeds without it. All constraint, 

Except what wisdom lays on evil men, 

Is evil ; hurts the faculties ; impedes 

Their progress in the road of science ; blinds 

The eyesight of discovery ; and begets, 

In those that suffer it, a sordid mind, 

Bestial, a meagre intellect, unfit 

To be the tenant of man's noble form . — Cowper. 

The strength of the educational influence is won- 
derful. It is so identified with the voice of God 
speaking in them, at them, to them, and [through 
them ; and that constantly and audibly ; that its 
witchery is unparalleled. Hence it is almost impos- 
sible by any means to break the charm, where once 
it has gained a commanding influence in early 
life ! The power of association, the homogeneous- 
ness of the scheme, the visible uniform in which 
they always appear, their peculiarities of language 
and behavior, their family interests and relation- 
ships, with innumerable other matters, all unite to 
make an influence and an atmosphere of the sect, 



144 

which they easily identify with goodness and hea- 
ven, and from which it is next to impossible to 
escape. Hence in general to be born a Friend is 
to die a Friend. Argument, evidence, truth, may 
all be against them in vain : they feel it not, they 
know it not : and there they are, stagnant and im- 
movable. This is a portentous character of the sys- 
tem, and ought to make especially the young to 
pause and consider! When I look back on that in- 
fluence as it affected me, my feelings are unuttera- 
ble : — I have never spoken or written their intensity ! 
I bless " the only wise God " that I am not what I 
was, a Friend ! By this however I do not mean that 
I had any "godly sincerity" or did my duty ac- 
cording to knowledge, while one of them. So far 
from this, I then knew that I was no christian, and 
felt that I was unfit to die ; inasmuch as I often and 
even habitually acted contrary to the " light within :" 
by which I now mean only my natural conscience 
armed against me, as it was, with a very superficial 
knowledge of the scriptures. I did however believe 
that Quakerism and Christianity were just the same ; 
and so deep were my convictions in favor of the 
scheme, that the operation of scripture, in that re- 
spect revolutionizing my mind, was truly agonizing. 
It was also difficult and terrible ! To find one's self 
wholly wrong in first principles ; to see the necessity 
of repentance ; to renounce all the hallowed and 
long habituated associations of infancy and child- 
hood ; to see scripture every where contradicting 
what you before knew to be true ; and to embrace 
" that which is good " after " proving all things :" 



145 

what is this but difficulty and anguish ! The sys- 
tem ought to be right that so rivets its principles 
to the very being of its disciples ! It ought to be 
right, for it is very seldom renounced at all ; and 
much more seldom for the sake of Jesus Christ ! 
It ought to be right, for otherwise all its present 
votaries will probably live and die in error : so great 
the power of educational religious prejudice ; I 
feel it to this day ! I never see a very plain garb, 
without some of the reverent associations of child- 
hood : — it looks so good, so patriarchal, so inspired! 
This proves only the power of education in general, 
and of religious education in particular, and of early 
religious education more especially, as it does not 
.prove that Friends are right in the lessons of religion 
which they inculcate ! A Friend is ordinarily made 
before he is five years of age ! the stamp of charac- 
ter is impressed on a yielding surface so deeply, and 
sq seemingly by the hand of God himself, that its 
print is indelible ! This I call the cement and the 
secret of their system. In addition to this all their 
children are born, not spiritually but naturally, into 
full birth-right membership ! and it needs no evan- 
gelical regeneration or subsequent profession to 
constitute the finished Friend ; which a child com- 
monly becomes, as soon as he becomes of mature 
age. But when some are recreant to the light, and 
sin against the costume and other ordinances and 
sacraments of the society, they are still Friends in 
their consciences — in their associations — in their 
convictions ! They were made such without cate- 
chism, intelligence, or evidence. In some solemn 

19 



146 

flashes of the light, they felt its reality and they 
know (no religionists speak more confidently) thai 
it is true. If ever they reform, it will be of course 
according to all the formalities and usages of 
Friends ; now they are gay and dissipated, but 
they are still Friends : — and education has decided 
their creed I Hence a Friend is always established 
and unalterable ; and this without examination^, 
without knowledge, and (I fear) without prayer I 
Hence he never changes, but plods onward and dies 
as he lives— a Friend I In this Friends often, very 
often, glory. If a man is once made acquainted 
with Friends' principles, say they, he can never 
wholly "get rid of it." Of this I have often been my- 
self reminded ! And in general it is truth I But is 
this any argument, or one of their best, for the truth 
of their system? It may prove the strength of 
false and early and habituated impressions alone ! 
It may prove that the system has nothing to do with 
evidence ; that it k purely mechanical, and that it 
only enslaves its disciples : it may prove that the 
whole concern is nothing better than an organized 
system of prejudice. Skich a process may make 
Friends, just as, in a change of circumstances, it 
also makes Deists, Mahommedans, Jews, Romanists, 
Pagans, or even Atheists ! Now, it is a known 
principle in the philosophy of mind, that a man ean> 
seldom be by evidence corrected from that course 
of which he was not by evidence convinced ; he can- 
not be reasoned out of error, if he was not at first 
reasoned into it ! If it were reasoning that makes 
an infidel, reasoning could much more convert him* 



147 

But when passion, pride, prejudice, education, per- 
sonal influence, social sympathies, interest, fashion, 
worldly considerations, or profligacy, or a combina- 
tion of such causes, make for a man his principles 
or persuasion in religion, he is ordinarily shut against 
the light of evidence ; he is proof to the truth and 
the grace of the gospel. His soul is the victim, and 
luaven the forfeiture ! and justly, for no man, young 
or old, has a right to believe without evidence, 
and to be led by mere dictation, in the awful mat- 
ters of salvation and eternity ! God has furnished 
us with full and perfect evidence of his own being 
and perfections ; of his ways of administration with 
men ; and of the unalterable principles of his moral 
empire ; of the person and offices of his Son, and of 
the only way of salvation " through his blood " and 
by faith in his name ! And " how shall we escape, 
if we neglect so great salvation V 9 

I do not however deny that there are good things, 
such as they are, in the style of education adopted 
by Friends. There are many good things in it — 
for the present world, which would be infinitely 
better, were it not for the world to come ! They 
make their children commonly industrious, orderly, 
economical, tender in their affections, obedient to 
parents, regular in their habits, moderate in their 
desires, comfortable in their dwellings, and respec- 
table — often rich ! in society. This they do in a 
certain form, to a good degree, and with a fearful 
amount of degenerate exceptions not equally recog- 
nised by ordinary observers. But what is all this 
to an immortal, who must obey the gospel of Jesus 



148 

Christ or — perish for ever ! What is all this, if, 
with so much of temporal convenience, they un- 
dermine the welfare of his soul and effectually pre- 
judice him against the religion of Jesus Christ 1 
What of all this, if they have given him principles 
of religion perfectly incorrigible and fundamentally 
wrong \ They have done him the greatest possible 
disservice, which is all the worse for the good things 
that accompany it. 

Friends have one7advantage in respect to repu- 
tation, touching apostates and delinquents of the 
society " disowned," which is peculiar to them- 
selves. Their degenerate sons forego the costume, 
and so exonerate the society. Hence their relation 
to Friends, being no longer advertised along the 
streets, in " plainness of speech, behavior, and ap- 
parel" becomes as though it was not or had never 
been. Thus the public in effect grant them total 
irresponsibility in this matter ; and judge of them as 
if their best appearing specimens were all ; and so 
frame all their associations in their favor. In the 
mean time, Souvenirs, and Tokens, and Amulets, 
and all the harpings of semi-pagan minstrelsey and 
popular sentimentalism, the sickliness of refined re- 
ligion that proposes a way to heaven less vulgar 
than that of " repentance toward God and faith to- 
ward our Lord Jesus Christ ;" all these influences 
report them well, and view them as moving citadels 
of light and purity. 

The Quaker stood under his smooth broad brim. 
In the plain drab suit, that simple and trim, 
Was better than royal robes to him, 



149 

Who looked on the inward part; 
Foregoing the honors and wealth of earth ; 
And emptied his breast of the praise of birth, 
To seek the treasures of matchless worth 

Reserved for the pure in heart. — Extracted. 

In effect, the world is a great forest, in which a re- 
negade Friend ensconces himself, and relieves the 
fame of the society. Hence seemingly they have no 
such characters. The individual instances that oc- 
cur, though terribly numerous, are known each by 
a comparative few, and not by the public. This is 
one cause of their popularity with the superficial, 
the sceptical, the morbidly sentimental, and the 
weakly charitable — who seem to love every thing 
alike or at least to profess that impracticable folly. 
How noble, as well as different, is the prayer of the 
apostle for his Philippian converts ! " that your love 
may abound yet more and more in knowledge and 
in all judgment ; that ye may approve (discrimi- 
nate) things that are excellent ; that ye may be sin- 
cere and without offence till the day of Christ ; be- 
ing filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are 
by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God." 
There is no heresy, says an ancient father, in 
which, taken as a whole, there is not more of truth 
than error ! So, there might be more of food than 
poison in a fatal dish, in which, but for the food, 
the poison would never be tasted ; still, the poison 
is more than sufficient to kill : and is the food then 
an advantage 1 This simile shows the real state of 
the case, the gospel being umpire. The fatal cha- 
lice of the " murderer " of souls, must be made 



150 

palatable, and is often bountiful and luxurious be- 
side : or, it would not be so eagerly quaffed even 
by the multitude. I, for one, little thank Quaker- 
ism for all its imposing worldly excellencies, since 
I am well persuaded that their scheme deprives me 
of my only glory and hope — " Jesus Christ and 
him crucified" and the worship of God accord- 
ing to his own authority and grace ! Take from 
me this — and I would you could rob me of ex- 
istence too ! since, being without blessedness, is 
not desirable; and blessedness without Christ, is 
impossible ; and Christ without his truth and wor- 
ship is a vile illusion. The Christ of Quakerism 
is not the Christ of the scriptures. The gospel 
sends us out of ourselves to Christ by faith, for 
eternal life : Quakerism sends us, feeling in the 
dark for the inward light, which is Christ in every 
man from the foundation of the world! Is this the 
Christ of the New Testament ! I have no words 
with which to express the horror of my soul at the 
perversion ! How many worldly good things ought 
Quakerism to give us in compensation for such a 
robbery 1 I would say to Quakerism personified 
with its lures, " Thy money perish with thee ! for 
I perceive thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in 
the bond of iniquity !" Take Christ away, only 
quench the glory of the mercy-seat, only put out 
the sun of our day, and all your lighted tapers, 
your festivity and y owe friendship, your banqueting 
and merriment, but mock the melancholy 

Of him whose thought can stretch beyond an hour. 



151 



I know that all this will appear— -poetry, to those 
who prize not " the excellency of the knowledge 
of Christ Jesus, my Lord !" But with them it is 
notoriously an easy reckoning every day to live 
without him, forget him, and count themselves 
" rich and increased with goods and in need of 
nothing;" while they are "without Christ, being 
aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and stran- 
gers from the covenants of promise, having no 
hope, and without God in the world." Eph. 2 : 12. 
And such will say what aileth thee 1 and compas- 
sionate the softness that can mourn for such a 
visionary absence ! " And they say unto her, Wo- 
man, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, 
Because they have taken away my Lord, and J 

KNOW NOT WHERE THEY HAVE LAID HIM." John, 

20 : 13. These are rational tears, worthy of the 
cheek of men and angels. It is wisdom weeping 
at the grave of hope, and trampling on sceptres 
and diadems ! It is immortality humbled in despair, 
and abhorring her sins while crushed beneath the 
burden ! It is penitence without pardon, religion 
without peace, holiness without salvation ! How 
different the light of scripture ! — the index-finger 
of truth pointing to the Savior ! " Behold, the 
Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the 
world." 

By many these pages will be censured for their 
harshness and for utterly disparaging the excel- 
lences of Friends. With respect to their excel- 
lences I say comparatively nothing : and this not 
that I either deny or disesteem them. Some quali- 



152 

ties they undoubtedly possess that are amiable and 
useful ; and I cordially wish that these, whatever 
they are, were more increased, more enlightened 
by " the truth of the gospel," and more widely 
prevalent in the earth. I expect to be scarcely 
credited by them, when I ,,; protest unto them," 
that I am conscious only of benevolence to their 
true temporal and eternal interests in all that I 
think, speak, or write, concerning their erroneous 
scheme. But whether they believe it or not, God 
is witness. If I did not at least fully believe that 
my motives were benevolent, I should myself have 
no hope toward God. But my hope is happy and 
my faith perpetually gathering strength. I have a 
hope, which, in degree of excellence at least, I am 
sure I could never have derived from Quaker prin- 
ciples. What then could induce me thus to oppose 
their scheme ! Solely the conviction that it is wrong ! 
Why did Paul oppose Judaism or Luther popery ! 
They were both benevolent. " Glory to God in the 
highest," was associated in their moral feelings with 
" peace on earth, good will toward men." Yet we 
see how their good will acted ! It often induced 
them to expose, confute, denounce, and even an- 
athematize, the corrupters of the gospel. And in 
this they were not less benevolent, and much more 
self-denying, than when thev were administering 
consolation to the contrite. I speak not of the ex- 
cellences of Friends, because I think they are quite 
too conscious of them; because they have been 
overrated by the world ; because they do not ne- 
cessarily imply piety toward God ; because, if mere 



153 

social and apparent excellence be all they have, so 
living and so dying they will perish for ever ; be- 
cause their errors is the grand matter which moves 
me to write at all; because the things in which 
they are wrong are greater than those in which they 
may be right; because while they talk and act 
against vain amusements, war, slavery, and spirit- 
ous liquors, they also talk and act against the su- 
premacy of the scriptures as the word of God, and 
against the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's 
supper, which are most demonstrably and even evi- 
dently divine institutions ; because, while their impo- 
sing appearance is a passport to the confidence of the 
superficial, their carelessness or denial of the sanc- 
tity of " the Lord's day," is a grief of heart to the 
most intelligent christians ; while the vagueness 
and vacuity of their confession, on fundamental 
articles of christian truth, as the doctrine of the 
trinity, the person and offices of the Redeemer, the 
value and relations of the death of Christ as con- 
nected with human hope, the depraved moral cha- 
racter of man, the true doctrine of the influence of 
the Spirit, the nature and the indispensableness of 
regeneration, the wonderful divine method of jus- 
tification, the resurrection of the body, and the 
eternal states of men ; the vagueness and vacuity 
of their creed, and the imbecility or ambiguity of 
their practice, in respect to points like these, neces- 
sarily and righteously induce the suspicion, of all 
well informed and honest disciples of the Son of 
God, that they are radically apostate and graceless. 
Another reason for the alleged omission is the ex- 

20 



154 

treme sensitiveness of the Quakers to the matter of 
human approbation. I wish we all cared practi- 
cally half as much for the approbation of God ! 
Any observer, who has eyed their manners and 
read their books, will see how ill they can endure 
the moral frown of the community. If public sen- 
timent were enlightened and humane in its general 
testimony against them, they could hardly maintain 
their distinctive character in this country. Here 
they pay no tithes, church-rates, or other legal ex- 
actions, for the support of the " hireling " clergy. 
They have all the immunities of citizenship and are 
eligible to all the places of eminence : and they 
will nev*er (as I think and hope) be persecuted into 
consequence by their countrymen. I am as utterly 
and as sincerely averse to all persecution and phy- 
sical coercion on religious accounts, doing or suf- 
fering, as they are : and do as cordially condemn 
the icholly unchristian persecutions which Friends 
have suffered in either hemisphere. This, I fully be- 
lieve, is the present sense of every sincere protest- 
ant. But the value of the truth is not less, because 
we have learned icholly to abjure the use of carnal 
weapons in its support. The war must be con- 
tinued, but the armor must be of celestial tempera- 
ment alone. Nor yet, because of this, are we to 
consider a truce with the foe as expedient, or obli- 
gatory, or allowable. Christianity can never steal a 
march on the world or succeed by ambuscade or 
skirmishing. All she wins must be by fair battle, 
under the open eye of day. She scorns conceal- 
ment, treachery, stratagem. " She challenges in- 



155 

vestigation and defies refutation." She opens her 
bosom to the foe ; and if he will not be conciliated 
to her person and besought to draw the precious 
nutriment of her consolations, he may violate that 
maternal bosom with his impious dagger — he will 
find it strangely invulnerable to his assault. Only 
his weapon and himself, will be broken. 

The charge of harshness is much in the same 
predicament. If what I have written be justly styled 
harsh, my reasons for adopting that character of dis- 
putation are the following. 

1. The importance of the matter. To doubt that 
importance is to discredit all religion. Look at it 
as related to all other religionists ; specially to all 
who knowingly reject their doctrine. They will all 
be lost, according to the gospel, if the Quaker doc- 
trine be true ! for, he that believeth not, shall be 
damned; and they most decisively disbelieve and 
denounce it. On the other hand, what will become 
of Friends, with all their placidity, philanthropy, and 
high pretensions ; if at last it should appear that 
they had accredited " another gospel, which is not 
another," instead of that of Christ 1 They will all 
be lost together who have nothing better than pure 
Quakerism to defend them from the fire ! These 
are my convictions ; and I know that they are just 
as true as the New Testament. 

2. I really believe that the plain attire and speech 
of Friends, which give them such a saintship of ap- 
pearance, are the veil that covers many an aban- 
doned infidel. I might think this from the nature 
of the case. Externals cannot change the heart; 



156 

otherwise, the " hirelings " of the British establish- 
ment must be as holy as their vocation, as stainless 
as their surplice, as unsullied as their lawn. But I 
know it from actual converse with individuals ! with 
multitudes, preachers of both sexes, as well as their 
commonalty ! and I have yet to learn what is the de- 
finition of that infidelity to which Jesus Christ 
hath pledged himself to award damnation, if they 
are not legitimately and most awfully in danger of 
it ! When one of their first preachers tells me, in per- 
sonal conference, that Jesus Christ made no atone- 
ment ; that God exacts none except what the sinner 
makes with his tears ; and that the resurrection of 
the body is a monster of absurdity ; when he ridi- 
cules " the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
of the Holy Ghost ;" when he doubts the miraculous 
conception of Christ, thinks it probable that Joseph 
was his proper father, and at all events considers 
that to err in this is nothing to the sin of eating West 
India sugar ! When another tells me that Ezekiel 
bore the sins of his age just as Christ bore ours — 
being melancholy on account of them ! When ano- 
ther takes a little child and pronounces him " with- 
out all sin, as holy as an angel," while the scriptures 
say, " that which is born of the flesh, is flesh ; ye 
must be born again : the wicked are estranged from 
the icomb; they go astray as soon as they be born, 
speaking lies : we were by nature children of wrath, 
even as others ;" and while their whole tenor teaches 
the " enmity of the carnal mind against God :" when 
all this, and a million other things in perfect keep- 
ing with this, are taught and held by the society, 



157 

the known holders and teachers uncensured by their 
authorities, I am reduced to the fair necessity of con- 
tradicting the New Testament, or discrediting the 
piety of the Quakers, or defiling my conscience with 
the charity of the world which " rejoiceth [not] in 
the truth," or abandoning the laws of rational thought 
and evidence. 

3. Another reason for my alleged severity is that 
I believe they have been greatly injured by a luscious 
and spurious clemency ; and that nothing but " great 
plainness of speech" and uncompromising applica- 
tions of the truth, can reach the seat of their malady. 
They are natively just as sinful as other men, and 
they equally require all the specifics of the gospel 
for their restoration. But who shall tell them what 
they are, and what they must become, by " repen- 
tance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus 
Christ," as the only alternative of perdition 1 Their 
preachers have altered very much since I have heard 
them, if they will ever do this wisely and faith- 
fully ! What then is my office 1 To apologize for the 
gospel and flatter them in the name of the Lord? 
"For we are not as many, who corrupt (dilute, 
as wine is artfully reduced by dishonest mixtures) 
the word of god : but as of sincerity, but as of God, 
in the sight of God, speak we in Christ." I know 
of none who more dilute and enervate the genuine 
discriminating might of the gospel than the preach- 
ers of Quakerism, especially their tuneful female 
preachers. These are frequently charmers. They 
sing their inspired fascination, that affects the phy- 
sical sensibilities, acts rather soothingly or in some 



158 

indefinable way on the nervous system, comforts the 
unregenerate, and instructs nobody. 

4. Any other course, than that herein pursued, 
would do violence to my own convictions of the im- 
mutable nature of the gospel and of the contrariety 
of Quakerism to that nature ; would afford no peace 
to my conscience or pleasure to my memory. My 
views of the duty of a preacher may be found in the 
second and third chapters of Ezekiel, in the first of 
Jeremiah, and in the last four verses of the second 
of second Corinthians. If I have said any thing 
that is untrue, let it be demonstrated, and (if need 
be) I will publicly confess and retract it ! Not being 
inspired or infallible, I may commit errors : and bound 
to nothing but truth, I can confess them. Nothing 
else shall move me. And by demonstration I mean 
a sound argument from scripture against the doc- 
trinal, or from witnesses against the historical, or 
from self-contradiction against the didactic aver- 
ments. And let no professor of Christianity join the 
popular outcry against the alleged harshness of this 
treatise, who is not prepared to show its essential 
contrariety to the religion of the Bible. There is 
no people in the world who more deal in softness or 
are more injured by it, than Friends. It is not at 
all my primary aim to please them — / expect to 
make them angry : but this is not my desire ; it is 
rather at once my anticipation and my grief ! Tell 
me how the truth of scripture can be faithfully dis- 
played against its inimical corrupters so as to please 
them, and that way I would like to adopt : still, if 
they must be goaded with truth or remain ignorant 



159 

of its nature and hostile to its charms, then I say let 
them feel it ! 

I have called their preaching, especially that of 
the feminine department, tuneful ; for such it emi- 
nently is : operating like a charm, as pouring on the 
soul the freshest tide of heaven's eternal minstrelsy, 
through them. With all their opposition to sing- 
ing, which they " cry against" and by profession to- 
tally disuse in worship, I know of few denominations 
who do so much at it, in a sort, as Friends. They 
sing their preaching, and their praying — which sel- 
dom occurs, almost all of it. Their inspiration moves 
with difficulty when not on a canter. This inspired 
singing, is mainly what I mean by sorcery, as appli- 
ed to their ways. Still, it is a fact that the effect of 
their devout cantation is very considerable. It arrests 
the attention and enchains the sympathies ; and is 
quite entertaining and agreeable often, while it dis- 
penses with thought-work and conscientious self- 
application. Friends might learn, one would think, 
that singing is natural to us ; that it suits our con- 
stitution ; that it is founded in principles that never 
vary ; that its powers will become adverse, if not con- 
secrated ; that God has incorporated it both in the 
body and the soul of his worship ; that its sanction 
and its evidence pervade the whole Bible ; that it 
deserves scientific and philosophical cultivation ; 
that it is a delightful and most excellent part of wor- 
ship ; that Jesus Christ practised it ; that his apos- 
tles established and regulated it ; that his church 
has evermore maintained it ; and that Fox and his 
company nullified the divine constitution when they 



160 

professedly exploded it, with " all sorts of music," 
from their hearts and voices. 

A great fault it is in any people which I am now 
about to expose ; and common, wherever the truth 
is not known and duly honored ; yet, more rife 
among " the religious society," and more embodied 
in some sense surreptitiously in their religious sys- 
tem, than among any other description of religion- 
ists known to me : it is this — sincerity is all. 
The sophism consists in the generic vagueness of 
the word sincerity, that determines nothing as to 
the moral qualities of the mind in religion ; while 
it requires us to accord the superlative dignity of 
christian character to men " who obey not the gos- 
pel of God," and who insist on salvation, neverthe- 
less, because they are sincere. This is probably 
the whole hope, if not the whole creed, and the 
whole religion, of thousands of ungodly men, espe- 
cially of the foxian school. There are many such 
reposing in hope among Friends. They hold to the 
word, as if it were the thing; or to the thing, 
as if there were possibly only one way of being 
sincere — and no way of going to perdition with 
" a lie in the right hand." Hence they are se- 
renely comfortable in their graceless attainments. 
They apply their minds with no intensity of ear- 
nestness and praijer, to ascertain the truth. They 
live, in numerous instances, more ignorant of the 
contents of the Bible than many a six-year-old 
pupil of a well-taught infant school ; they are 
imperturbably satisfied with their own doings; 
believe in the " effectual operation " of the light 



161 

within; dress plain, use the plain language — and 
very seldom (whatever they smother) utter a word 
of evil audibly ; desire to be industrious, lay by 
something, be economical, grow rich, and dislike 
all priest-craft and hireling preachers ; and being 
sincere, who is better in his prospects for another 
world, one would like to know \ Will such an one 
go to heaven at death X " Straight as an arrow from 
a bow, I tell thee." Certainly ! How unjust to send 
him in the opposite direction ! What harm has he 
done 1 Who has a better chance? He was always 
peaceable, kind to the poor, paid his debts, and was 
a member of Friends' meeting. A pretty reason 
for doubting his safety, to be sure ! 

The only difficulty is — that all this, though 
" highly esteemed among men, is abomination in 
the sight of God ;" being just as far from the truth 
of the gospel, as darkened infidelity can make it ! 
Where is any sense of our moral rain, as fallen crea- 
tures, " children of wrath — that which was lost?" 
Where is faith in Christ 1 Where repentance, humi- 
liation, and the evidence of a change of heart! 
Where self-knowledge, religious experience, or spi- 
ritual joy? Where the Mediator, the covenant of 
grace, the succor of the promises ? What distinc- 
tive feature of christian piety does such a character 
manifest ? Where is there any sense of sin, any 
peace at its pardon, any mention of " the only name 
under heaven, given among men, whereby we must 
be savod 1" Where is their professed faith in the 
doctrine of regeneration? or are Friends all regen- 

21 



162 

erated of course, because full members that have 
retained their birth-right to — delusion 1 Suppose? 
by possibility, in any given case, the individual 
was at heart a true and spiritual worshipper ; and 
is saved, as Job says he " escaped with the skin of 
his teeth ;" still, the objections to this facile favor, 
presumptuous charity, and uniform construction of 
safety, are two-fold : first, It proceeds with utterly 
insufficient evidence, declaring what is not proved, 
what no man knows, and what, even probably, may 
not be true ; and second, It is a positive, efficacious, 
insidious, injury to the living, without any possible 
benefit to the dead. 28 

Still, they affect not to know it, many of them. 
" I am sincere," covers all. And there are other 
ways, much allied to the former, by which they try 
to evade the responsibility of evangelized men. 
(1) lam conscientious* (2) If this is not duty, I 
am not to blame, for I know no better. (3) I know 
enough already. If a man has more required of 
him, in proportion to his advantages, I shall only 
increase obligation by increasing knowledge : if 
we should all do, as well as we know, it would be 
better for us. They seem " willingly ignorant of" 
such principles as the following : that ignorance 
of duty may result simply from a sinful dislike to it; 
that ignorance of duty is sin, where we have the 
means of knowledge ; that all men are obligated 
to know God, and to improve all the means in their 
possession to this infinitely excellent end ; 
1 Cor. 15 : 34, that God will hold them to account 
not only for all they have, but for all they might 



163 

liave had, not only for all the sound sermons they 
hear, but for all they refuse to hear, not only for 
attainments and achievements, but for facilities and 
means and opportunities and privileges, not only 
for what they use, but for what they abuse; that 
their conscience is not higher than his authority, 
and not exempt, in any possible instance, from the 
jurisdiction of his law ; that a man may be to 
blame for his sincerity as well as his profligacy ; 
that there is no neutrality in religion, so that we are 
the enemies if not the friends of Jesus Christ ; that 
sincerity merely is no proof of piety, since a man 
may be sincerely stupid, and stupidly practising a 
wicked course of conduct ; that it was sincerity of 
a specific kind, " godly sincerity," that character- 
ized the apostles ; that Paul was as sincere before 
his conversion as he was after it — when " breath- 
ing out threatenings and slaughter against the dis- 
ciples of the Lord," as when edifying them in 
goodness — when he " verily thought with himself, 
that he ought to do many things contrary to the name 
of Jesus of Nazareth, which things he also did in 
Jerusalem," as when preaching among the nations 
" the unsearchable riches of Christ ;" that the time 
has long since arrived which the Savior predicted, 
" when whoso killeth his disciples shall think that 
he doeth God service ;" that some indolent and 
corrupted sinners, infatuated by the judgment of 
God, sincerely " believe a lie, that they all might be 
damned who believed not the truth, but had plea- 
sure in unrighteousness ;" that few penitents ever 
" repented themselves " more sincerely than Judas, 



164 

when he •• brought again the thirty pieces of silver 
to the chief priests and elders. Baying, I have sin- 
ned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood ; and 
they said. What is that to us ! see thou to that, 
and he cast down the pieces of silver in the 
temple, and departed, and went and hanged him- 
self;" and that there is a perfection in the moral 
government of God. which such excuses will never 
prevail to destroy, blind as they may be to all 
the principles involved in that perfection. A prin- 
ciple of requisition in the government of God. 
from which he xever departs, they seem not to 
know or clanishly to resist and sophisticate — that 
" without faith it is impossible to please God ; v and 
that of consequence "they that are in the rlesh." 
that is, who act on carnal or worldly principles, con- 
tinuing in them, ••'cannot please God;" do what 
they will in forms of excellence, with such expec- 
tancy. Rom. 8: 8. Heb. 11: 6. James. 1 : 6-S. 
Hence in general they do not understand the doc- 
trine of faith. The only faith required in their sys- 
tem is that — in the '-'effectual operation" of the 
internal principle. And what is this, but faith in a 
worse than moonstruck fallacy ! Hence the system 
cheats the souls of men — cheats them of knowledge, 
of sound doctrine, of mental liberty, of evidence, 
of instruction, of Christianity; and substitutes a 
thing of ••will o' the wisp" dimensions, that rose 
from the bogs of "Drayton in the clay. Leicester- 
shire." England, some two centuries since. If any 
one accuse me here of actually hating Quakerism. 
I beg he will never attempt to prove his position: 



165 

as it is wholly unnecessary. My confession shall 
forestall him : I certainly do hate it ; by all the hope 
of heaven that I cherish consciously in Christ Jesus 
at this moment, I abhor it ; by all the love I bear to the 
gouls of men, my own and others, I abhor it ; by all 
the sense I have of what Christianity is, and what the 
scriptures mean, and what men infinitely need in 
order to salvation, I renounce and execrate it ; and 
make it a part of my piety to detest it, as a composi- 
tion of spiritual sorcery, presuming ignorance, and 
deceitful dogmatism ; offensive to heaven and dele- 
terious to the noblest hopes of men, in "the life that 
now is and also that which is to come :" — and I 
qualify the written solemnity only by remarking that 
it is wholly and only against the system, and not at 
all against individuals, that it aims the honest and 
hearty declaration. I have no wish to " snatch from 
His hand the balance or the rod," who decides on 
persons according to truth ; can be deceived by no 
specious counterfeits ; has himself anathematized 
" an angel from heaven" who should vend " another 
gospel" or vitiate the true ; and who has of right 
and of power the independent sway of destinies, 
both mine and theirs. " Amen. Alleluia." 

That there is criminality in all religious error, 
misanthropy as well as impiety, and essential sin 
in cherishing it, is plain to any honest reader of the 
word of God, or any common thinker on the nature 
of its contents. I can express the truth, however, 
in a better way, by a quotation from my honored 
friend, Dr. Miller. In his excellent sermon on " The 
enmity of the human heart against the character and 



166 

government of God." published in the Murray- 
street Discourses,, he inquires, " Does error 
spring from deficiency of evidence ! Is there not, in 
the arguments by which the scriptures are proved 
to be divine, a variety, an amplitude, adapted to 
carry conviction to every mind not stupified by 
passion, or rendered impenetrable by prejudice ! 
Thev never have been, they never can be, under- 
mined or shaken. And as it regards the general 
features of the system which the Bible has incul- 
cated, is it not a reflection on the wisdom of him 
from whom it emanated, and subversive of the 
verv design of its promulgation, to say that it can- 
not be satisfactorily ascertained, by any diligence of 
research, united with candor of mind and purity 
of moral feeling ! Radical error, in one who applies 
himself to the study of the sacred records, cannot 
arise from any want of perspicuity in them, but 
must be the offspring of a heart hostile to that 
Being who has impressed upon the gospel the 
irnacre and superscription of his own glory. The 
conclusion cannot be evaded, but by assuming at 
once all the monstrous dogmas of infidelity." To 
that conclusion I find myself painfully reduced in 
reference to the erring system of Friends, whene- 
ver I ponder the affecting subject — from which my 
thoughts are almost never away ! Hence I judge 
their " foundation" to be " sandy;" needing to be 
•• shaken" not only, but utterly subverted and sup- 
planted by that of the gospel — which is another 
system and the o>"LY sure one ! Friends are not 
alone in the magnanimity, that likes truth only 



167 

when it suits them. But among all tellurians or 
lunarians of my acquaintance, they are distinguish- 
ed for liking those that like them, and liking no 
others. Matt. 5 : 46, 47. To refute them, especially 
if it be unanswerable, is a great injury. It mars 
all "the unity of the Spirit" which is identified 
with — their feelings ! and this is the highest idea 
that any of them seem to have of the matter. Their 
feelings are — inspiration ! 

I regard Quakerism also to be one of the most 
heavily oppressive systems that ever became preva- 
lent, as the voluntarily cherished incubus of mind. 
" While they promise them liberty, they themselves 
are the servants of corruption." While they vaunt 
themselves peculiarly free in their mental action, it 
is plain to a dispassionate observer of facts on both 
sides, that they are perhaps the most priest-ridden 
community in Christendom. This fact I know some- 
what experimentally — contrasting present freedom 
with former bondage. The principles of priest- 
craft, properly such, are organized into the very 
structure of their society. A few have rule ; con- 
trol every thing ; forestall argument ; check investi- 
gation ; propound doctrine ; imprison thought in 
their spell of influence ; enunciate the last advices 
of their inward oracle ; tell how it was with " early 
Friends ;" denounce all priest-craft except their 
own ; and dogmatize serenely away all wicked du - 
bitation and worldly propensities to examine. Hence 
mind is suffocated with smoke, called " light ;" and 
the more " ductile " they are, to the invisible mon- 
itor, the impalpable fanaticism, the most celestial- 



168 

looking forgery, the more saturated are they with 
inward light according to " the unity in the silence 
of all flesh !" Hence the deception is a perfect spi- 
ritual fascination too. Fox was, while he lived, 
the Loyola of the order, for authority. No con- 
vent was ever ruled more completely by sanctimo- 
nious abbot or fastidious prioress, than the whole 
society by a recent forgery from heaven, delivered 
by one or more (for they generally confirm each 
others' reports) male or female functionaries, in 
great " sincerity." I have myself witnessed facts 
of doating folly which it would be sullying these 
pages to rehearse — all " sincere," I have no doubt. 
In the spell of this influence are they all, more or 
less : — except perhaps those hickory allies, who 
have merely a nominal relation to the society, and 
have been educated with very little of its realized 
influence. The feminine venders are more nume- 
rous. Their spirituality is loquacious. They see 
more visions ; more frequently uncover the head to 
usurp the headship of a large assembly : and often 
virgin diffidence itself, is taught to deny itself, and 
brazen the looks of promiscuous thousands, sono- 
rous and superior, infallible as the Delphian oracle, 
clothed cap-a-pie in spiritual sincerity, bronzed in 
the holy impudence, and willing sacrifices in the 
cause of " the light !" 

Priest-craft may be defined — Any system of in- 
fluence, maintained by religious officers or others, 
under the assumed sanction of the name of God, 
which is not authorized by evidence that can be 
demonstrated, and which may not be so resolved 



169 

into the authority of God alone. According to this 
definition, it may be observed; 1. That priest- 
craft is as old as sin ; and as wide, in its seminal 
existence and tendencies, as the depravity of men. 
They reason most perversely who charge it in any 
sense on Christianity : for (1) It ordinarily abounds 
most (though never most hated) where Christianity 
is least known and possesses no influence. It is the 
very soul and body of paganism. The Druids, as 
Caesar's Commentaries tell every school-boy, practis- 
ed a most perfect system in the British Islands, be- 
fore Christianity, as such, was known in the world. 
Chaldea, Egypt, Troy, Carthage, the cities of 
Greece, the story of pagan Rome, the altars and 
oracles of heathenism, the facts of universal his- 
tory, and the false worship of the nations since the 
age of Nimrod, all attest it. An illegitimate spi- 
ritual regency, a system of imposture with its mys- 
tagogue or its hierophant its priest or its priestess, 
in gorgeous and glaring or simple and " plain" 
habiliments, is the brief description of false reli- 
gion in this apostate and benighted world. This is 
priest-craft. It is the disguise of the devil as the 
great deceiver of the nations. But (2) How can 
Christianity be oppugned for this? There is no 
system like Christianity. It is its own original. It 
exposes, denounces, execrates, all priest-craft ; and 
has really taught even infidels among us, all they 
know in principle against its evil nature and im- 
pious usurpations. I observe 2. That Christianity 
is THE ONLY CURE for priest-craft in the 
world. Man is " a religious animal," as philoso- 

22 



170 

phers tell us. It is true* He has a conscience; 
is a mass of wants and fears ; is weak and knows 
it, even against his vanity and his vaunting ; infers 
by necessity the existence of a superior power, 
from the attestations of the visible universe ; is a 
moral being and a sinful one, and knows both — - 
even when he owns neither; as mutual censure, 
and mutual crimination, and mutual ambition of 
praise, every where demonstrate : and he will 
have a religion of some sort. All history proves it. 
If not the true, he will have a false one : and he 

PREFERS A FALSE ONE NOTORIOUSLY ! Yet, just in 

proportion as you indulge his preference, you will 
morally imbrute and degrade him ; you will make 
him servile, superstitious, sanguinary ; you will in- 
dulge priest-craft of some sort, and facilitate the 
irruption of every sort and every degree of that 
ruinous and soul-murdering leaven ! What shall we 
do 1 What is the inference 1 Where the alterna- 
tive ? It is plain, as the vision of angels to the 
shepherds of Bethlehem ; sweet, as the music of 
their song ; efficacious, as the salvation of their 
Prince : Give him Christianity ; pure, lucid,* 

FULL ; AND MAN WILL BE NEITHER SLAVE, NOR SIM- 
PLETON, nor comparatively sinner. Christianity 
is the grand catholicon ; the only one under heaven 
that deserves the name ; the only one that abhors 
all quackery, all false profession, all forged certifi- 
cates, all money-making imposture, all abuse ; the 
only catholicon that meets the case, suits the wants, 
equals the malady, restores the ruin, answers the 
intellect, and, reinstates the total being of man in 



171 

the perfection of his God. True, it does not ope- 
rate mechanically ; nor by chemical affinity ; nor 
by electrical conductors ; nor by magical effect. It 
is alone by contact with the mind, that it generates 
its own transcendent good. It does not profess, 
by mere proximity, or local residence, or geographi- 
cal classification, or pious ancestral eminence, to 
restore and save us. By understanding it, loving 
it, doing it ; and in no other way, are its eternal re- 
storative excellences divinely realized to a human 
being. Where then or when was there ever a proper 
instance of failure 1 To understand, and love, and do, 
its truth, is the philosophy of experimental religion. 
Where not so entertained, it does not profess to con- 
fer the benefit. Whence I observe, once more, 3. 

That THE ONLY GENUINE ENEMIES OP PRIEST-CRAFT 
ON THE GLOBE, ARE TRUE ENLIGHTENED CHRISTIANS ; 

and this, just in proportion to their real conformity 
to the gospel, that infallible institute of God. Hence 
these are steadfastly and comparably the only friends 
of diffusing the scriptures ; of enlightening the peo- 
ple ; of circulating sound intelligence ; of multiply- 
ing and universalizing the facilities of knowledge ; 
of correct and manly reasoning ; of proving what 
they hold and what they teach, inducing the people 
every where to be " more noble than those in Thes- 
salonica, receiving the word with all readiness of 
mind, and searching the scriptures daily, whe- 
ther those things are so ;" of exposing all im- 
posture ; of having their own credentials searched; 
and of having Jesus Christ, and not themselves, 
glorified in the salvation of men ; saying, " not for 



172 

that we have dominion over your faith, but are 
helpers of your joy : for by faith ye stand." Again, 
I observe, 4. That infidels and heretics, great 

AND SMALL, ARE THE GREATEST PATRONS OF SECTA- 
RIANISM AND PRIEST-CRAFT IN TERRITORIAL CHRIS- 
TENDOM. This paradox is still a truth. They are, 
it may be, opposed to all sectarianism — except 
their own ; since they are themselves a sect ; and 
their interests are as completely one as were those 
of Herod and Pilate — when Christ is to be put down 
or slain ! Under their nominal guise of opposing 
sectarianism, they cloak their spiritual theomachy — 
their opposition to all religion, and to God himself : 
they wish to put down Christianity, and put up the 
priest-craft of infidel sincerity, philosophizing athe- 
ism, and the apotheosis of reason ! How silly the 
victims of their devices! They would take from 
us all the shield and all the sword we either have 
or desire, against the very priest-craft of which they 
are the vaunted enemies ; "the sword of the Spirit, 
which is the word of God," and "the shield of 
faith " invincible in combat. I observe lastly, 5. 
That Quakerism is evidently a system of dou- 
ble-refined priest-craft. Its influence over 
mind is confessedly as great as that of the ancient 
Druids or the followers of any heretical delusion 
ever broached. Is it warranted 1 Is it a legitimate 
influence 1 Can it be demonstrated 1 Can they 
" render a reason " for their towering pretensions ? 
Can they rationally resolve their spiritual regime 
into the manifest authority of God ? Is their do- 
mination at one identically with that of the holy 



173 

scriptures \ Is Quakerism Christianity \ Let candid 
examination, attending dispassionately to evidence, 
answer. As a witness, if I may speak, I am not afraid 
to record that if Jesuits and Roman priests are in 
favor of the circulation of the scriptures, and op- 
posed to the maxim that " ignorance is the mother 
of devotion ;" if the papal hierarchy are not mainly 
an organization of infidels ; if their known priest- 
craft, and boasted infallibility, are in favor of the 
universal diffusion of knowledge ; if they are wont 
to prefer evidence to authority ; and if they allow 
the right of private judgment in religion ; then is 
Quakerism a system of evidence, aloof from impos- 
ture, and involving none of the vital elements of 
spiritual tyranny, potent priest-craft, and servile 
submission : then, and only on those suppositions, 
is it not a system of imposture. They will say, this 
is mere assertion. Possibly not. However, some 
argument may appear in this treatise. But I speak 
also with the privilege of a witness. If I do not 
know both sides, namely, Quakerism and Christia- 
nity, it has scarcely been for want of opportunity or 
application : and I surely know my accountability. 
Besides, I know the accountability of others. No 
one is obligated to believe what I say, without evi- 
dence, or against it ; and no one will reject truth, 
adequately shown, from whatever motive, without 
an inevitable responsibility to God. " But all things 
that are reproved (reprovable) are made manifest 
by the light : for whatsoever doth make manifest, 
is light. Wherefore he saith, Awake, thou that 
sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall 



174 

give thee light." The word of God makes manifest. 
Some will say, Why so severe in the abstract? 
We must judge Quakerism by its fruits. I answer, 
certainly, by its fruits ; but what is to be the crite- 
rion 1 The whim of human softness, or the caprice 
of the million, or the philosophy of infidels, or the 
partiality of worldlings, or " the friendship of the 
world which is enmity against God 1" or, his holy 
word alone 1 If the latter, I fully consent ; and say, 
this is exactly what I have done. With the word of 
God for the criterion, I judge the system ; and pro- 
nounce its fruits to be mystical, deceptive, fallacious, 
and ordinarily any thing but genuine Christianity. I 
sincerely believe that — Hickism is one of the genu- 
ine fruits of Quakerism ; and that its common ap- 
propriate fruits are different in kind, and contrary 
in nature, when compared with the wise, intelligible 
sober, practical, holy, catholic fruits of Christianity. 
"Judge not according to the appearance ; but judge 
righteous judgment :" and let those who flatter 
Friends now, remember that Jesus Christ will call 
them to account for it at a tribunal where flattery 
will be shown to any one, only as a sin to be 
branded and condemned. How specious is the 
practising of " them that glory in appearance, and 
not in heart !" How imposing is their glorying ; 
how superficial ; how irradiate with the glare that 
betokens " an angel of light !" But what right has 
an impenitent or unconverted sinner, no matter how 
' plain' and no matter who, to arrogate the prero- 
gatives of the children of God ! to vaunt as if any 
thing was good enough, as a substitute or an eqni- 



175 

valent, for a changed and sanctified heart — a heart 
purely at " peace with God through our Lord Jesus 
Christ V Let men beware of democracy in re- 
ligion ! Christianity is not a republic, but a king- 
dom. It is an eternal theocracy ; and monarchists 
alone can constitute its subjects. Reader, surren- 
der your heart, your mind, your being, fiducially, to 
the Prince eternal, " on whose head are many 
crowns ;" accept his salvation in cordial obedience 
to the truth, and yours it is for ever ! O — will you I 
It may be thought that what is here exhibited, 
and the manner of it, betrays a degree of confidence 
that wise men will only compassionate 1 What can 
/ expect to effectuate 1 What does it imply that I 
should think to assail with effect a structure that 
has stood the brunt of intellectual chieftainship for 
so many generations 1 Will Quakerism go down 
now, because I write 1 To all this, I answer — My 
confidence is indeed singular and very steadfast ; 
but its nature perhaps and its objects may not be 
well understood. I would ask the curious and the 
penetrating, and especially the judicious christian, 
to resolve these questions : Is it confidence in my- 
self, or the cause, that is here exemplified 1 in any 
thing of my own, as such; any thing to which I am 
sufficient as of myself; any thing that is to hap- 
pen as the mere result of what / can do 1 Or is it 
confidence in God? I trust in God alone — in his 
truth and his cause : in his purposes and prophecies 
and providences and promises— that quadruple al- 
liance of faith, that everlasting and harmonious 
chain of strength omnipotent, in which to confide 



176 

is simple and happy piety. " There is no restraint 
to the Lord to save by many or by few. Be not 
afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of 
the wicked, when it cometh : for the Lord shall be 
thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being 
taken. — I can do all things through Christ who 
strengtheneth me. Commit thy way unto the Lord ; 
trust also in him ; and he shall bring it to pass. 
Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him ; fret 
not thyself because of him who prospereth in his 
way, because of the man who bringeth wicked de- 
vices to pass. Delight thyself also in the Lord ; 
and he shall give thee the desires of thy heart." 
Under God, my confidence is in the display of his 
truth, as that chosen instrumentality by which emi- 
nently he works. I have endeavored to explain 
several very important passages of scripture, in their 
true and native meaning — and am sure that if in 
these I have succeeded as an interpreter, I have 
carried the point as a polemic. The reason is — the 
strength of the word of God ! Till these scrip- 
tures, to which I now refer, are just shown to be 
falsely expounded, I shall calmly view the victory 
as won ; and give all the glory to him to whom I 
resign the arbitration of events, with pure satisfac- 
tion in his government. To the exposition of these 
texts mainly would I invoke the attention of the 
inquisitive reader; for, after all, what God has spo- 
ken, and what he means, are the decisive matters. 
" The word of the Lord endureth for ever. There 
is no wisdom, nor understanding, nor counsel, 
against the Lord." And hence it is that " a false 



177 

witness shall perish ; but the man that heareth, 
speaketh constantly ;" i. e. he speaks with decision 
and uniform steadfastness, because he listens and 
learns of God. I will here request the serious reader 
C£r* To keep his Bible at hand, and peruse carefully 
the passage and its connection, in every case where 
the allusion is important or the explanation at- 
tempted at length. He will thus be better qualified 
to judge of what is truth ; and to see " if those 
things are so," which he will find declared : and if 
they are, and he be really a serious reader, he will 
be too wise to blame so poor a worm as I am, who 
had no agency in the matter, for what the scrip- 
tures teach ! He must then settle the controversy 
with God — till which be seen and felt, tenderly and 
deeply, by a man, he will ordinarily play the fool in 
sacred concerns, both in his censure and his praise, 
his cavilling and his commendation. " And what 
are we 1 Your murmurings are not against us, but 
against the Lord." I add that in the scriptural 
positions is all the idtimate strength of this treatise. 
If these are valid — so is the cause which they sup- 
port. Till these are refuted, it is impossible to do 
any thing effectual in opposition to the publication. 
Till they are refuted nothing is done for Friends 
and their cause. ^£Q Hence a man is scarcely com- 
petent to condemn this work, whatever his general 
sense, or fame, or station, unless he possesses pro- 
bably the following qualifications : 1. He must have 
a correct and thorough knowledge of scriptural 
truth ; 2. He must know in full comparison what 
Quakerism is; 3. He must be prepared to JUDGE 

23 



ITS 

religiously, and not from any worldly motives, be- 
tween Christianity and Quakerism as here display- 
ed. Friends can find worldly-wise men, superficial 
and interested persons, venal and capricious editors, 
plenty of them, and perhaps some persons illus- 
trious in the world — " in form and gesture proudly 
eminent," and even some w^eak and facile religion- 
ists of different denominations, to side with them, 
and condemn any publication that honors the su- 
premacy of truth and vindicates the scriptures im- 
partially as " the word of God." But all this will 
avail them nothing, so long as the expounded 
quotations of scripture are obviously against them. 
For the rest — I trust in God ; leaving all in his 
hand, feeling my own weakness and deep un wor- 
thiness in his sight ; and praying that he would 
deign to make useful what I have written ! 

A class of thinkers there is, some of them of 
considerable consequence in life, to whom, antici- 
pating their estimate of this work, I would venture 
a respectful caution. They are men of manners 
and of mind, of influence and reading, of great 
social respectability and general soundness of intel- 
ligence, of professional eminence or retired dignity, 
of experience in the things of the world and of 
large observation in human affairs : in short, they 
are men for whose opinion on almost any subject, 
the public would be willing to yield their confidence 
in anticipation. But are they equally competent to 
judge and to pronounce on the subject of religion? 
on that etherial theme of themes, that is of its own 
class, its own eminence; its own criterion 1 Here is 



179 

the blunder exactly that some great men make: — 
religion is the only subject, we may say, which they 
do not understand ; which they have never patiently 
and impartially and thoroughly examined : the only 
subject concerning which they venture to pronounce 
presumptuously ! And is it the only subject that is 
worthy of their neglect I It is here too, and here 
alone comparatively, that they are wayward and 
intractable ; suspecting the motives, and overlook- 
ing the demonstrations, of those who kindly wish 
to help them in the paramount concern, and who 
(even on the humble principle — ne sutor ultra cre- 
pidem 29 ) are quite competent to the task. They 
are, it may be, speculative believers ; semi-converts ; 
and willing to pass in religion for considerably 
more than they are worth ! By what STANDARD 
do they judge I Demonstrably by a false one ; one 
condemned by the law of God, and preparing for 
the scorn of demons in the day of judgment ! " For 
the preaching of the cross is to them that perish, 
foolishness ; but unto us who are saved, it is the 
power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the 
wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the 
understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise I 
Where is the scribe 1 Where is the disputer of this 
world 1 Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of 
this world !" With all their glorious intellection and 
envied superiority, they never can comprehend the 
nature of evangelical humility, or the way of "life" 
and the only way revealed " as it is in Jesus," or 
the principles of vital piety ascendant. They are 
described, if they did but recognise their own like- 



180 

ness, in many places of the scriptures ; as " heady, 
high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers 
of God ; having a form of godliness, but denying 
the power thereof; ever learning and never able 

TO COME TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUTH." Of 

them is the order of God to his ministers, and his 
people too ; " From such turn away !" that is, as I 
understand it, keep away from their influence ; 
mark them as such and let your estimate of them 
be independent of popular appraisement ; keep 
distant from their power and their society, as aware 
of their seductive qualities, unless when and where 
you may possibly do them good ; as the physician 
frequents the places of infection, not that he may 
catch the disease, but if possible assist or administer 
the cure. But in the supreme concern, how great 
the fatuity of these intellectual nobles ! How they 
elaborate their own confusion and rush to the ca- 
tastrophe of all their greatness ! How they dupe 
their own understandings in religion, expecting 
God to defer to them and provide some special 
conveyance for their dignified transmission to hea- 
ven ! the vulgar way — would be shocking and in- 
tolerable to think of! Yes, here in this country of 
no stereotyped nobility, or hereditary grandeur, or 
names of heraldic eminence, it is becoming more 
and more a desideratum with this class, to have a 
religion for gentlemen ; one fit for scholars and 
dignitaries ; one that can be sustained without all 
vulgarizing or mingling with the herd ; one that 
will be competent to opulence and philosophy — and 
that shall intoxicate also the pretension, the pe- 



181 

dantry, the insolent ambition, of all the underlings 
and upstarts and tributaries in the community ! To 
all which, I would only oppose the naked point of 
" the sword of the Spirit," radiating with more than 
electrical efficiency : " Let no man deceive himself. 
If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this 
world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. 
For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with 
God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their 
own craftiness. And again, The Lord knoweth 
the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain." 

One of the wisest things perhaps which such 
men, the best of them, can say, is what one of 
them (now in thought — for whom I cherish more 
than mere respect) has substantially said, on this 
general subject; npr do I aver that there is no wis- 
dom in it : " The clergy will not give the Quakers 
credit for their real improvement ; nor recognise 
their certain melioration ; nor, it seems, permit 
them to grow better ; nor let them alone." To all 
this, I reply; that it seems to me to be in the case 
the mere wisdom of a liberally educated pagan ! 
no knowledge of Christianity ; no perception of 

THE GRAND CRITERION IN RELIGION THE LAW OF 

God and the truth of his gospel; no justice 
done or allowed to the motives of benevolence, 
that would rouse the sleeper in a house on fire ; 
no spirituality ; no sense, no truth, no goodness ; 
but merely the superficial views of worldlings, 
elegantly temporizing, and talking as if religion 
were not the terra incognita of their travels, their 
investigations, and their discoveries ! As for the 



182 

f improvement' of Friends, to what does it all 
amount religiously, if they are not on the founda- 
tion, the only one that God has laid in Zion ? If 
they give no proper evidence of this, it is real mis- 
anthropy, and not the wisdom of the kingdom or of 
the King, to " let them alone 1" They will not be 
let alone in the day of judgment; why should they 
in the day of mercy ! Besides, the declivity of 
things, or " the course of this world," is not " the 
way, and the truth, and the life." Things do not 
meliorate toward heaven by neglect, or self-prompt- 
ing. Men are saved in contravention of " the 
course of this world ;" and not by drifting with its 
tide. No man grows better by abandonment of the 
appointed means of grace. " Ephraim is joined to 
idols: let him alone." And what is this, but the 
dirge of his soul 1 Let Friends accept the Savior, 
the Lord Jesus Christ, cordially, intelligently, as 
revealed in " the lively oracles " of " grace and 
truth ;" and let them abjure their folly and their 
mysticising fantasy, for the scriptures, as " the word 
of God," honestly acknowledged, and as their 
HIGHEST RULE IN RELIGION, devoutly lov- 
ed : and then let the clergy be blamed if they do 
not rejoice over them, with the angels of God ! 
Otherwise, you blame the clergy for their fidelity 
alone ! for their invincible attachment to the gospel ! 
for their immutable preservation of an eternal testi- 
mony ! for their plainly unpopular adhesion to the 
truth ! For one, and with no strong hold on time, 
and consequently no known motive or prospect of 
worldly advantage, I can declare that it would 



183 

sweetly sooth the last or any other hour of my life, 
and give a new delight to my song of triumph in re- 
demption by Jesus Christ, could I think that the 
whole society, or any number of them, were becom- 
ing genuine converts to the faith of the gospel ! I 
feel more — but cannot express it. 

" Visions of glory" throng my cherished sight, 
And " unborn ages crowd " upon " my soul !" 

One other sentiment, common among the general 
class I have described, deserves animadversion. It is 
this : ' A man ought not to change his religion ; es- 
pecially the religion of his ancestors, the religion in 
which he has been educated, and in which all his 
social relations and domestic sympathies reside.' 
This is very specious ; it appears very amiable ; it 
is quite full of respect for temporal convenience and 
homeborn tranquility : and it is perhaps one of the 
most common, really influential, flatly unchristian, 
and mostly incorrigible, principles of human action. 
It is adopted by the Friend, the Romanist, the Jew, 
the Mahommedan, the Infidel, the Sectary, the No- 
thingarian, and the votary of any one of a thousand 
other casts of religion. Strange too that it should 
be advocated by those who pique themselves on 
their philosophy and elevation of mind ! But so it 
is. Fashion is omnipotent. It can " change times 
and laws," reverse the nature of things, revolution 
the ways of God, canonize reprobates, and stamp 
\ the most senseless and impossible positions with the 
indisputable impress of truth ! But before the sen- 



184 

tjment to which I now refer is adopted and practi- 
cally hazarded by any one, I would entreat him to 
consider the following things : 1. Whether every 
different system can be equally right, or safe, or 
worthy 1 or, if not, whether such views will not be 
overruled confoundingly in the day of judgment 1 
2. Whether truth can be other than a unit, or pos- 
sibly consist with contraries 1 3. Whether such a 
sentiment obeys any precept of the decalogue 1 or, 
if it can possibly obey the fifth by violating the 
first, second, third, and fourth 1 4. Whether do- 
mestic peace and the kind treatment of relatives, 
excellent ends as they are and by none more valued 
than by me, may not be purchased at too dear a 
rate or perhaps overrated in our tender or instinc- 
tive estimate I Whether some sacrifices may not 
be required of us for Christ's sake ; and whether 
one can be saved while loving others more than 
him ? 5. Whether Christ has never anticipated 
the difficulties which it was framed to suit 1 and 
whether he would not have us meet them in a dif- 
ferent way — a way that cares more for eternity than 
time, for the soul than the body, for the creator 
than the creature, for salvation than ease and ele- 
gance of life ! I would refer (not for one who cares 
not to examine) to the following places for an an- 
swer ; Luke, 12 : 49-53 ; 14 : 25-27. Matt. 19 : 29. 
Mark, 10 : 28-31. John, 12: 25, 26, 42, 43. And 
having said this, "from such" we " turn away." 

I turn, honored fathers and beloved brethren in the 
gospel of Jesus Christ, most affectionately to you, 
in whom the whole church glorifies God with rea- 



185 

son : and before I conclude this introduction, will 
adventure a word of animadversion on a different 
and yet a related subject ; if your kindness will 
suffer it, from one so consciously your junior and 
your inferior in the service. Emboldened by the 
peculiarities of my own religious history, and of 
feelings and estimates of things thence necessarily 
resulting, I may speak freely in the audience of all 
men, even to you whom I justly revere. Most 
tenderly do I esteem and love you all, and those 
hundreds of kindred spirit whom you properly re- 
present. Sincerely do I suppose that you hold 
heartily in substance one system. The enemies of 
God are of the same opinion ; they group you 
together, in their antipathy, their caricature, their 
defamation. They regard you as the steady and 
the mighty advocates (as well as the sincere disci- 
ples — a more heavenly character,) of the religion 
of Jesus Christ ; and they make common cause 
against you. 

Fas est et ab hoste doceri. 

'Tis wise and oft subserves the noblest ends 

To learn of foes, that teach us more than friends ; 

The act may profit, while its aim offends. 

Is there no demonstration here of substantial 
unity and general identity of sentiment I How use- 
ful is christian union ! In what then do you possibly 
differ 1 and in what may you agree to differ 1 I an- 
swer ; Simply as your metaphysical philosophy may 
differ, in explication of the great things of your 
common faith : simply as it differs in its forms of 
solution or its felicities of inculcation and defence* 

24 



186 

This I solemnly and cordially believe. How great 
and how many are the matters in which you are 
agreed ; in which you aim decisively at the same 
thing ! and profoundly may we question, whether, 
from the certain imperfection of christians in this 
world, and the variety of your educational and local 
influences, and the individuality which the plastic 
hand that formed has stamped upon your minds, and 
the acknowledged idiosyncrasy of character which 
has always existed in the church and diversified her 
modern as it did her ancient ministers — men of con- 
science and independent thought and habituated 
investigation pre-eminently ; we could ever wisely 
anticipate, in the true church of God, a much 
greater degree of theological coincidence on earthy 
than now exists among you ! In the great facts and 
principles of a common system, you are certainly 
united. What insipidity and stagnation and supine- 
ness, might we not expect as the sure result of 
perfect uniformity ! Now, there is debateable ground 
enough to keep acumen awake ; and not enough to 
rouse or authorize any alienation. You are breth- 
ren and ministers of the same Lord Jesus Christ. 
I know and love and honor you all. So do thou- 
sands of better judges. What I now write is 
rather for others than yourselves. I believe you 
hold the truth in common ; the truth of the Refor- 
mation ; the truth of Christianity. I believe you all 
hold the truth, as the world all hate it ;. and as 
it would be now corrupted or opposed by its ene- 
mies ; and as contradistinguished from the errors 
of Sabellius, Arius, Pelagius, Arminius, Socinus^. 



187 

and Fox— and from the more abstract errors of 
antinomianism, stoicism, fatalism, fanaticism, radi- 
calism, ultraism, neology ; " and if there be any 
other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine ; ac- 
cording to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, 
which is committed " respectively to our " trust." 
From a general acquaintance with all, and a special 
intimacy with some of you, I aver, that I am unable 
to see any differences among you which should 
alienate you from my christian esteem and confi- 
dence, or that could properly engender alienation 
among yourselves. You differ indeed ecclesias- 
tically, as belonging to several denominations of 
christians ; who are all allied in mutual corres- 
pondence and engaged nobly in the same mis- 
sionary action. You differ theologically, only in 
the mode of explaining and vindicating and apply- 
ing the same great truths of a common system. 
Suppose then, fathers and brethren, that there was 
among us more of a manifest assiduity of kindness ; 
more of magnifying the things of unity and dimi- 
nishing the things of dissidence ; more of liberal 
and generous allowance where variance might be 
of reason and in a sort of right expected ; more of 
personal conference and prayer on topics of ambi- 
guity or doubt ; more intercourse, frankness, and 
love, according to the temper of the blessed Paul ; 
more of manifested confidence and holy magna- 
nimity and reciprocal esteem ; more dependence 
on moral and evangelical influence, and less on the 
machinery of church government ; more of a prac- 
tical sense of personal responsibility to a common 



188 

and a reigning and a witnessing Lord; more of an 
unwillingness to misunderstand, suspect, inculpate, 
or avoid, one another ; more of a just appreciation 
of the motives and the sanctions and the symbols 
of professed sincerity ; more of watchfulness against 
the spirit so often censured by one that " made 
himself of no reputation" for our sakes; Mark, 
9 ; 33-50. 2 Thess. 2 : 7, 8. 3 John, 9 : 12. Rev. 
1 : 20. more of unity in action and service, as 
indispensable, and very eminently efficacious, to 
promote unity of vision ; more of the spirit of be- 
nevolence, and of the sympathies of goodness, and 
of the living portraiture of piety ; more sense of 
what is common and identical in our interests and 
duties, our principles and dangers, our histories and 
prospects ; more of the wisdom that discerns our 
common enemies and necessities and weaknesses 
and exposures ; more in short of the temper and 
the acting of the gospel of our Lord, the Lord of 
Glory, our example as well as our expiation and 
our righteousness : what would be the result 1 I 
answer ; it would be excellent, manifold, certain, 
permanent. It is just what God is waiting for, 
what the church desires, and the world perishingly 
needs ! Some of these results I could venture to 
predict : such probably as these ; we should see 
that in the things of faith we were all more alike 
than perhaps we supposed; that it was easy, 
and sweet, and safe, to forbear with each other 
in minor peculiarities ; that imperfect phraseology, 
and the passion for philosophizing, and specious 
logomachy, make a great quantum of all our con- 



189 

structive or real differences; that evils could now 
be a hundred fold better corrected, when love came 
fresh from the cross to qualify orthodoxy into recti- 
tude, and when our colloquial and printed rhetoric 
always honored heaven's rule of demonstration, 
" speaking the truth in love ;" that the moral power 
of each, and the collective power of all, would be 
increased, refined, amplified, in all legitimate influ- 
ence ; that the spirit of the ministry would become 
every where elevated, purified, homogeneous ; that 
other denominations and the whole country would 
derive a kindred benefit ; that our theological semi- 
naries would become schools of experimental piety 
and the culture of gracious affections, as well as the 
high places of theological lore and exercise and ac- 
complishment ; that we should all increase in prac- 
tical wisdom ; that religion's power would be quad- 
rupled in all directions ; that the evident blessing of 
God would attend us, making our ministrations liv- 
ing and effectual, as " the ministration of the Spirit 
and the ministration of righteousness ;" that conver- 
sions would abound and revivals of religion become 
the steady order of the day ; that the churches would 
more and more love their ministers ; that the wicked 
would be confounded, and refuted by their ow T n 
consciences ; that error would die of necessity or 
retreat to courted and distant solitudes ; and that 
jealousies would fade away, antipathies expire, 
sectarianism wane to its destined dishonor, and the 
vices of bigotry, superstition, fanaticism, mystical 
divinity, unsanctioned observances, with other and 
kindred evils that annoy us now, would be continu- 



190 

ally reduced and superseded, by the triumphant in- 
fluence of the gospel. Of these results, proportion- 
ate mainly to the reform or the advance attained, I 
have no doubt : and always does the thought occur, 
when I see with pain the little difference mag- 
nified reciprocally into the mighty all of the con- 
trovertist, that if those brethren had been educated 
as thoroughly in the inward-light scheme, or any 
other grand error of the earth, as some of their ac- 
quaintance were, they would know how to appreci- 
ate each other better ; and they would thus begin 
to brighten the prospects of the nineteenth century 
before the history should be written of its earlier and 
its less honorable years. 

Allow me to advert to some evils that especially 
claim correction. 1. Sectarianism ; a love of sect, 
that seeks its praemia laudis in this world, and as 
the reward of mistaking the denomination to which 
one happens to belong for " the kingdom of heaven," 
or at least the frequent implication of such a shame- 
ful sentiment. How often do we hear " our church, 
our denomination, our judicatory, our people," spo- 
ken of, in such terms of personal appropriation as 
carelessness or earthiness alone could inspire ; such 
as seem to forget who " purchased the church with 
his own blood." The first epistle of Paul to Timo- 
thy was written to instruct that lovely young evan- 
gelist, "how he ought to behave himself in the 
house of God, which is the church of the liv- 
ing God." The proprietor of the church is its claim- 
ant too ; and if not " his glory," neither will he 
give his property to another. Besides, do those 



191 

more honor the denomination to which they belongs 
who continually prefer, and even oppose, its separate 
interests, to those of the whole kingdom of Christ 
on earth ; or those who judge the interests of that 
kingdom steadily and purely preferred by all its 
members and officers, to be the very best way of 
promoting those of the denomination ? each in his 
own sphere and place, certainly ; but each for the 
kingdom of heaven ! The sin of sectarianism ap- 
pears to me to be rottenness at the heart of the body 
and poison in the very soul of the church. It is a 
deadly injury to any denomination of our vaunted 
fondness ! It consists in exalting local against 
universal interests ; private against catholic views ; 
party against piety ; policy against principle ; and 
our men, our measures, our doctrines, our views, 
our prosperity, against the glorious commonwealth 
of the King of Israel. And what is this, but exalt- 
ing earth against heaven 1 It hardens the heart of 
a minister of Christ, and saddens the soul of a pri- 
vate disciple : converting the former, while it justly 
lessens his influence, into a cruel inquisitor, or a 
facile Jesuit, or a wily politician; the latter, into a 
sickly bigot, or a dissocial monachist, or a barren 
devotee. Piety hence is nothing — but as party feels 
its influence. It soon loses the liberality that re- 
joices to pronounce, " grace be with all them that 
love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity ;" — "tothem 
that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be 
saints ,with all that in every place call upon the 
name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and 
ours." This to me appears the elemental mischief 



192 

of the papacy ; the very " mystery of iniquity/' 
whether it "works" in embryo, or is developed in 
Jiving vigor of monstrous youth or more horrible 
maturity. It dethrones the King of Zion, just in 
proportion as self is exalted to the supreme episco- 
pate. If there is any sin denounced in the " oracles 
of God " as the very quintessence of deceitfulness, 
the very sublimity of treason, the very hypocrisy of 
spiritual usurpation ; in short, the very personifica- 
tion described as "the man of sin, the son of per- 
dition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above 
all that is called God, or that is worshipped ;" 
we have here the identity of the evil in the 
temper of sectarianism. If this temper were 
well analyzed, it would be found to consist of very 
unlovely and anti-christian ingredients. It is wholly 
alien from " the fruit of the Spirit." The elements 
of its composition would be found probably to be 
deceit, hypocrisy, ambition, selfishness, apprehen- 
sion, suspicion, envy, jealousy, sordid feelings, 
false zeal, and the wrath of man " which worketh 
not the righteousness of God." Its holy preten- 
sions constitute one of its worst characteristics: 
but another of its worst is — the stealth and the ad- 
dress with which its influence often invades the 
truly good ! The evangelic histories confirm this 
position in reference to the apostles themselves, 
and illustrate the terrible sinuosities of the sin : all 
other history demonstrates its influence over com- 
mon mortals ; and that of the church particularly, 
its too potent spell over ecclesiastics in every age of 
the christian era. In short, no man is more deceiv- 



193 

ed by it than he whose self-complacency, beguiling 
him from a needful vigilance against its approaches, 
presents him to himself as an exception to the rule I 
" Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, 30 The 
spirit that dwelleth in us " (the native moral tem- 
perament of every individual) " lusteth to envy ? n 
Hence he neglects himself, in that very matter, in 
which the care of others can do least for his preser- 
vation ; and cares for others, in those very relations 
in which he ought to honor the supreme Inspector 
and feel as much the solemnity of his own accoun- 
table action. 

As envy pines at good possessed, 
So jealousy looks forth distressed 

On good that seems approaching; 
And, if success his steps attend, 
Discerns a rival in a friend ; 

And hates him for encroaching. — Cowper, 

There are personages, of other denominations 
than those to which any of us belong, and on both 
sides of the Atlantic occasionally found, whose 
high-church childishness is as proverbial, as their 
low-christian manliness is notorious. For them — ■ 
the high-church party, I mean — it is less incongru- 
ous, possibly less criminal, to identify themselves 
with " the church ;" to view their own sect as " the 
kingdom of heaven ;" and sublimely to abandon 
their more evangelical and better taught brethren, 
to the imaginary resource of " the uncovenanted 
mercies of God." For them-, exclusive pretensions 
may be less shocking ; possibly more in the way of 

25 



194 

their characteristic vocation ; less dishonorable, it 
may be, to their intellectual vigor. " When I was 
a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, 
I thought as a child." But for us, there is no such 
apology. We were never taught it, I think, by 
" holy mother church." It is no part of our pro- 
fession. It is not congenial with our creed. No 
one of us could avow it. Our churches would not 
endure it. Our piety, all of heaven that there is in it, 
reclaims at the perversion. The apostles of the Lamb 
teach it not; and while they every where remind 
us that the kingdom of Christ " is not of this world," 
they also " beseech us by the mercies of God," if 
there be " any consolation in Christ, if any comfort 
of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels 
and mercies," to "fulfil their joy, that we be like- 
minded, having the same love, being of one ac- 
cord, of one mind." They say to us, "Let nothing be 
done through strife or vain glory ; but in lowliness 
of mind let each esteem other better than them- 
selves." This exhortation may be considered a 
sovereign recipe, prophylactic and therapeutic both, 
against the mighty malady — the epidemic of eccle- 
siastics since the primitive ages. To follow it, is 
perfect freedom from the influence. No one would 
thus become the stern spontaneous censor of his 
brethren ; none would find his spiritual wardrobe 
empty of those desirable garments or heavenly 
mantles, with one of which a brother's nakedness 
could be concealed and a covering furnished, with- 
out connivance, even for " a multitude of sins." We 
should think it then as necessary to our theological 



195 

accomplishment to be " simple concerning evil," as 
it is obviously to be " wise unto that which is good." 
This is true wisdom. " Let us therefore follow 
after the things which make for peace, and things 
wherewith one may edify another." And let us not 
forget, while " the purity of the church " has ever 
been the persecutor's plea and passport to all enor- 
mities, that " the fruit of righteousness is sown in 
peace of them that make peace "—and not in war 
of thern that make war. Let us remember that 
Jesus Christ hath said, "Blessed are the peace- 
makers : for they shall be called the children of 
God." If I mistake not, this is the age, and this 
the country, and this the crisis too, for the obliga- 
tions of anti-sectarian Christianity to be felt, its 
characteristics exemplified, its excellencies acknow- 
ledged. What I know of Quakerism has quickened 
my sense and matured my detestation of the evil. 
2. Another evil, kindred in nature to the former, 
is this ; A too strict and even an illiberal con- 
struction of doctriiial orthodoxy. I mean here to 
sanction nothing like latitudinarianism ; nothing 
like denying the propriety of conscientiousness 
even in little things ; nothing like indifference to 
truth, in its major or its minor relations; nothing 
like servility or tameness in any of the details of 
faith or practice. We ought to be as really con- 
scientious in little things as in great ones : to pre- 
serve the mens sibi conscia recti 3l in the least, as 
truly as in the greatest. But ought we to insist 
alike on all in the creed of visible communion ; and 
make every thing a term of recognition which has 



196 

become to us identified, in whole or in part, with 
the truth of revelation 1 as if whatever may be 
necessary to the perfection of the church, were 
equally necessary to the visibility of the church ! as 
if every thing that a christian ought to be, is that 
without which a christian is not ! as if what belongs 
to growth and accomplishment, were indispensable 
in the same degree to existence itself! These mon- 
strous suppositions could not be sustained in argu- 
ment, and are perhaps very rarely affirmed in prac- 
tice. But are they as rarely implied! Are they 
never couched covertly in our sentiments ; insensibly 
in our conduct ; devastatingly in our influence ! How 
easily is the brand of heretic, or the impeachment 
of unsound, or the suspicion of innovating, or the 
whisper of erroneous, admitted or applied ! 32 And 
to whom 1 Men, whose piety perhaps has been long 
and well demonstrated ; with whom " the spirit of 
truth," and not " the spirit of error," holds mani- 
fest communion ; who are, and have ever been, " in 
labors more abundant," it may be, than most others, 
their allies or oppugners ; and whose success in the 
ministry, both in conversions multiplied and fruits 
unequivocal, has been the palpable seal of God on 
their commission as his own ambassadors. I know 
it is objected here, with something possibly of wis- 
dom, in show or in reality, that success is not the 
criterion ! Grant it — Is it not still a criterion, and a 
tolerably good one 1 one which any man would 
plead or consider in his own case, but simply for 
the reason — that there it has no applicability pro- 
bably \ Yes! says the objector, but success attends 



197 

many a hereriasch, many a fanatic, many a heathen 
corrupter. Look at Mohammed ; look at Peter the 
hermit; look at George Fox. I answer, all this is 
true. But what is the inference 1 that success is 
only of one kind ? or that successs in mischief 
is all l or that success in " winning souls " to 
Christ, and " turning many to righteousness," 
proves nothing 1 Not a christian on earth, nor 
an angel in heaven, believes any such extra- 
vagance of folly ! I repeat it ; no good man 
soberly believes any such thing. Do heretics and 
schismatics and heathen corrupters, ever appropri- 
ately succeed in converting men to holiness, to the 
faith of Christ, and " the blessed hope " of the 
gospell " By their fruits ye shall know them." We 
estimate fruits, I think, first by the quality; and 
then by the quantity. Suppose they are good and 
numerous — -are we to infer that they grew in the 
devil's garden and resulted from the culture of his 
emissaries 1 They are not " the grapes of Sodom ;" 
they are not " the clusters of Gomorrah." This 
will be generally admitted on all sides. Is success 
in rearing such fruit, no demonstration of an alli- 
ance with the master of the grounds'! with the 
giver of the increase 1 How then are his allies to 
be known 1 By imperious indolence 1 by arrogant 
denunciation 1 by an everlasting clamor or insinua- 
tion of their heterodoxy who do all the work, who 
brave all the dangers, who meet all the questions, 
and who bear all the " evil report" of "the master 
of the house 1" by such an outcry raised or nou- 
rished by men, it may be, who never were success- 



198 

ful in the ministry ! who never had a revival of 
religion probably under all their preaching ! who 
dwell in libraries and abstractions ; and know little 
experimentally of contact with the rude million, in 
a way that brooks their boorishness, and encoun- 
ters their very reviling, for the sake of showing 
them the love of Christ and the way of salvation 
through his blood ! The heartlessness with which 
the success of a preacher in the credible conversion 
of souls to God. is sometimes philosophized away 
to nothing ; and the nothingness of their success 
who thus reason, as sometimes exalted into a foil 
of their glorious orthodoxy while they thus pervert 
the argument, and to their consolation it may be 
who have cause rather to be humiliated and ashamed 
before God and man at their own official barren- 
ness ; are equally melancholly and portentous ! 
Success is better estimated in heaven ; where "they 
that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the 
firmament ; and they that turn many to righteous- 
ness, as the stars for ever and ever. For what is 
our hope, our joy, or crown of rejoicing \ Are not 
even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ 
at his coming? For ye are our glory and our joy." 
A man cannot be right by conformity, though he 
may be by conviction. It is evidence, not dogma- 
tism, that corrects him. The force of great names 
and the power of uninspired authority, are not only 
less than the power of the gospel ; they are different 
in nature too. They are also as much inferior, as 
they are different, in the influence they exert. 
They may make partisans ; but they will never 



199 

make christians : nor is it mainly by such means 
that God makes christians. " The word of God, 
which is contained in the scriptures of the Old and 
New Testaments, is THE ONLY RULE to di- 
rect US HOW WE MAY GLORIFY AND ENJOY HIM." He 

honors his own word ; he respects the laws of 
mind; he violates nothing but sin. He so effec- 
tually and tenderly persuades, whom he converts, 
that duty is seen as privilege and service relished as 
enjoyment. The love of the Savior invests all the 
legislation of the king ; and the grace of salvation 
facilitates all the mandates of righteousness. Ought 
we not to proceed in a way similar, when our end 
is corresponding] Is it not safe to copy an example 
so illustrious and superhuman 1 Good reason is 
there to suppose that such a way is that of your 
common desire ; and that you all approve, as I do, 
the following sentiments. " I have endeavored," 
says Dr. Woods, " to guard against any mixture of 
bigotry, being fully aware that this tends to pro- 
duce narrowness of feeling, and to prevent im- 
provement. Most heartily would I welcome 

EVERY RAY OF NEW LIGHT WHICH MAY SHINE UPON 
THE GREAT SUBJECTS OF REVELATION. FOR WHILE 
I REGARD THE UNCHANGEABLE WORD OF GOD AS 
A PERFECT AND INFALLIBLE RULE OF FAITH AND 
PRACTICE, I BELIEVE THAT OUR PERCEPTION OF 
ITS TRUTHS, AND OUR MANNER OF EXPLAINING AND 
ENFORCING THEM, ADMIT OF VAST IMPROVEMENT. 

And although, in the extent of their knowledge 
of Christianity, and their ability to defend and 
illustrate its doctrinal and practical principles, the 



200 

older divines seem to me far superior to the ge- 
nerality of late theological writers, whether in 
Europe or America ; I cannot but think that some 
real progress has been made during the last cen- 
tury in the right understanding of the christian 
religion, and in the right mode of setting forth its 
truths, for the conversion of sinners and the spread 
of the gospel. And it is my persuasion, though 
some may regard it as partiality or weakness, that 
this progress is chiefly owing to the labors of those 
whom we call New-England divines ; and I am 
supported in this persuasion by some of the ablest 
advocates of divine truth in Great Britain. But 
while I say this, I am ready to deplore whatever 
has been among us of erroneous opinion, and of 
unchristian feeling and practice. I cherish the 
pleasing hope, that the multitude of young men 
who have recently entered the ministry, or are now 
preparing for it, will seek and obtain larger mea- 
sures of divine illumination, than their predecessors, 
and that in the happy results of their studies and 
labors, they will exceed all former generations." In 
this extract, I have taken no other liberty than to 
capitalize two sentences, that deserve to be written 
permanently on conscious tablets of the heart. 
To the estimate of the author, respecting the theo- 
logians of New-England, I can fully subscribe ; 
without any imputation of indelicate praise, as / 
am neither a native nor a resident of that distin- 
guished district. To them do I confess the indebt- 
edness of the country and especially of the church. 
I wish indeed that here we could be unqualified, 



20L 

and without exception, in the benediction ! But — 
there are weeds as well as flowers, poisons as well 
as fruits : and however genteel, or honorable, or 
literary, or eminent, — If any man love not THE 
LORD JESUS CHRIST, let him be anathema, 
maran-atha ! 1 Cor. 16 : 22. 

Still, with respect to those who hold generically 
and with good proof of soundness, the same evan- 
gelical system, there ought to be — teste christo 
— increasing union ; and as the means of it, increas- 
ing forbearance and affectionate regard. All go- 
vernment is founded in concession. We defer to 
others reciprocally, and for ends of mutual benefit. 
If no latitude is to be given to thought ; none to 
investigation ; none to the free inspection of things 
debateable ; none to the calm and kind interchange 
of honest opinion or demur on minor points ; none 
to the best modes of philosophizing on the reali- 
ties of our common faith : the consequences are 
equally disastrous and evident — all government is 
at an end ; no conventional union can exist ; orga- 
nized combination however excellent its object, and 
regular co-operation however inspiring or evange- 
lical its cause, must be utterly and indefinitely aban- 
doned ! I am well and deeply convinced that there 
are elements of excellence and resources of strength 
in those circles with which we are connected, that 
require only a wise and a christian economizing, in 
order to secure some of the noblest and the purest 
achievements. And this consummation we should 
at least approximate, if we and ours were all so 
piously purposed and concentrating in our teuden- 

26 



202 

cieSj a? 10 show a more child-like obedience to tl 
divine exhortation : "beseeching ds that we walk 
worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called ; 
with all lowliness and meekness, with long-softer- 
insf. forbearing one ^ENDEAVOR- 

ING to keep" THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT 

IN THE EOND OF PEACE,'" 

It comes here happily to the purpose to avail 
myself of anothei extract Groin the ^*ri:iiig:s of c 
of you. fathers and brethren, memon nd with 

reciprocal accjon iddiessed to another ot your 
icoiored : oo : -r. " It hos been my ; o 
opinion." says Dr. Bce:her. ,, :"o/ norny de- 

rived from extensive observation, and a ■;:;■-.:.. *: 
tention to : mentary principles >f he van; 

differences which have agitated the church, that I 
ministers of toe orthodox congregational church. 
and the ministers cf toe presbyterian church, are 
all cordially united in svery ::o of the doctrines of 
the Bible and of the Confession of Faith, whi 
have be tii regarded and -d .mental : 

and that the points where diner do not sab- 

vert or undermine any one of these doctrines, or 
justify the imputation of heresy, or the 
men! of confidence n go-operation in every g 
work. I would not be nnderstood to say. that I 

ink the points of difference U be in every 
little const . \t .0 : e ; it to -. _ c . en 

ssault ind iefencc they may not be do 
rtfol extremes; nor yet too: earnest .. scnssioi 
conducted with christian courtesy, is to be depreca- 
ted. With >nt something of :' 



203 

intellect might fall asleep, and truth be transmitted 
by tradition through the memory ; and an unthink- 
ing theology, cold as winter and powerless as the 
grave, might extend a ' dead orthodoxy ' over the 
land — a sure precursor, as in Germany, of a coming 
age of heresy and infidelity." 

Most heartily do I appropriate the sentiments of 
the father ; and could add, were that decorous or 
required, my junior experience in attestation of their 
wisdom and their excellence. Equally for charita- 
ble allowance toward all substantial christians, and 
for absolute explosion toward all fundamental here- 
tics, ought we to be theologically and ecclesiasti- 
cally characterized. So have I learned Christ. So 
I intend immutably to act, by the grace of God. So 
to act, is most certainly the wisdom and the duty, 
especially in this age and country, of those whom I 
consider you, honored sirs, as representing, and in 
reference to whom I have been so bold in making 
this appeal. Your example, especially in coinci- 
dence and concert, as perfected and manifested and 
known, would, I think, under God, move and influ- 
ence our vast christian community. This I heartily 
desire, from motives, which, I trust, eternity will not 
denounce. The interests of religion require it. 
The wants of the world, the glory of Christ, the 
progress of orthodoxy, the regeneration of souls, re- 
quire it. Particularly, I long to see the glorious 
consummation for the sake of those wanderers from 
" truth and soberness," in reference to whom these 
pages appear. We need light in onr atmosphere, 
so pure and abundant, that heresy and extravagance 



204 

will die in it instinctively ; that infidelity will repent 
and trust the name of Jesus exultingly — or, retreat 
delirious to some far distant wilderness of night; 
and that sophistry and sorcery will be too obvious 
to the common vision of mankind, to encourage any 
longer their traditions or their triumphs. Shall I 
add, upon ivhat equal number of men in the United 
States, if not upon yourselves, rest such signal and 
noble obligations in reference to the results desired ? 
" The light of the body is the eye : if therefore thine 
eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." 
May " the Father of lights " most affluently endow T 
you with his precious gifts ! and use you, in this 
eventful crisis of things, as co-agents with himself 
illustriously, in effecting the wide and holy pacifica- 
tion of his Israel, the consolidation of the tribes, 
and the conquest of etherial arms against an em- 
battled world! 

How different from what we all believe, is the 
system of Friends ! I would denounce that system 
as " another gospel," I would denounce it in the 
name of Jesus Christ, if I stood alone, and if "all 
men forsook me," in the principled detestation of 
its abominable doctrines 1 I h&vefelt the misery of 
its priest-craft, its perversion, and its bondage. I 
will here present the reader with a synopsis of it, as 
I suppose it properly constituted, in answer to the 
frequent question, What is Quakerism ? The in- 
ference will be evident — we ought to be engaged 
and united in endeavoring the diffusion of the truth, 
for the extirpation of cardinal error ; this is what 
ought to occupy us primarily : — and after we have 



205 

achieved the victory, we may perfectionate our com- 
mon creed, comparatively at leisure, and compara- 
tively with a good conscience ! 

But it may be well here to enter previously a ca- 
veat, as pertinent to the times and the places of this 
work. Some have said to me ; Beware that you 
look at all the best symbols and the most recent 
specimens of their doctrine ; and give them every 
advantage, regarding always the last regular emis- 
sion or document of their views ; for these are 
thought to improve considerably as years and 
months proceed. A e you not willing that friend- 
ism should grow better] should approximate nearer 
and nearer to the true standard X and at last or per- 
haps soon become identical with Christianity? 

Answer — No ! I am not so willing : and for the 
following reasons ; 1. The idea is absurd. That 
grow better, which — as a system — is contrary to 
Christianity ! Friends may grow better, may " re- 
pent and believe the gospel," may become (would 
God they should!) christians, walking in the light 
of genuine oracles : they may thus improve — but 
their system, friendism, is another thing. It is a 
homogeneous compound of hurtful error. Hence, 
2. Its character is fixed ; and so is its definition, its 
nature, its history. It is not hereafter to be ascer- 
tained. The only proper criterion of what it is, 
is — the Quaker scriptures ; the sacred writings 
of Fox, Barclay, Penn, and others. 3. We are, 
therefore, not to expect any revised editions, or mo- 
dern emendations, or transformed improvements, 
of that old and well established identity. Let those 



206 

paragons of light (I mean the orthodox) that are 
swung from their ancient moorings, not deceive 
themselves. If they improve — I am glad of it. In- 
cumbite remis, pueri — bend to your oars, boys, would 
I say to them cheeringly, as they proceed to safer 
stations and a firmer hold. Only let them not sup- 
pose that they and Quakerism are identical. They 
will have, if they are sincere in striving to know and 
worship the true God in his own revealed way, to 
make changes more and greater than they now an- 
ticipate ; and happy they who make them : happy 
/ — by the grace of God — that have made them : I 
would do it again, O how quickly—- were it now to 
be repeated : only let not these changes, as they 
proceed, be construed as if Quakerism was chang- 
ing ! The idea of mutation is ruinous to its life. 
In that respect it is like the permanent decrees of 
the council of Trent. It professes to be based in- 
fallibly on the inspiration of God ! to be identified 
with Christianity itself! with Christianity in its great- 
est purity, spirituality, fulness, and perfection ! And 
its professions are the most impudent, exclusive, and 
vain. 

If any one object, that this is discouraging to 
those that would reform, I reply ; no such thing I 
Would they reform truly, or to salvation, who wish 
to do it by stealth ! who desire to be smuggled 
noiselessly into the kingdom, that prefers to " suffer 
violence " and be " taken by force !" who act like 
the disingenuous and indolent scholar, that asks 
every one to inform him about his lesson, and then 
says — I knew it before ! A man who is unwilling to 



207 

"come out from among them and be separate," 
may be unwilling to go to heaven in the only pos- 
sible way ; and as for a reform which the plain and 
practical truth, that illustrates its proper nature and 
objects, must not be permitted to influence, it is a 
kind of truthless reformation, of which the ungodly 
world is continually furnishing the apt and the 
miserable examples. 

I. In doctrine, it is at once the policy and the 
character of the system, to be often vague and ne- 
gative, in substance if not in form ; more opposing 
the things of others' faith, than magnifying aggres- 
sively the positives of its own. 

II. The cardinal error or central heresy of the 
system, is identified with a prodigiously important 
nonentity, which they call by different names ; as 
"inward light, the principle, the seed," &c. This 
is said to be a certain divine influence, apart from 
the substance and the faculties of the mind, resident 
in every human being, in all ages and nations of 
mankind, as " universal as the seed of sin." 

III. The great business of every one in religion 
is to mind that inward mentor, and walk in all 
things according to its demonstrations. 

IV. By due attention. uniformly given to this rule, 
salvation is attained infallibly and in the best man- 
ner. "And indeed this. is the surest way to become 
a christian" 

V. This rule in religion is plenary and para- 
mount; the most noble and the most excellent: 
far surpassing every other rule conceivable. 

VI As a consequence, the scriptures are 6n]y 



208 

" a secondary rule," and ought to be so " esteemed.'* 
For they sustain to this nobler one, the relation of 
the streams to the fountain ; the effects to the cause ; 
the production to the producer; the offspring to 
the parent ; the moon to the sun : and so, however 
good in themselves, inferior quite to the other. 

VII. The scriptures are not " the word of 
God," although they contain his words ; nor ought 
they ever to be so called or entitled. 33 

VIII. Immediate inspiration has not ceased in 
the church ; but exists in all true ministers as really 
as it did in the apostles : so that " where that doth 
not teach, words without do make a noise to no 
purpose." 

IX. The same influence specifically is indispen- 
sable to the existence of a christian, and " abso- 
lutely necessary to the building up of true faith ;" 
so that not to possess it, is to be only a vile and 
hypocritical pretender to the name ; and hence 
" how many christians, yea, and of these great 
masters and doctors of Christianity, so accounted, 
shall we justly divest of that noble title !" says the 
same luminary — Barclay. 

X. There is no true knowledge in religion, or 
none worth having, but that which depends on 
" inward objective manifestations in the heart " or 
"immediate revelation:" and such "testimony of 
the Spirit is that alone by which the true knowledge 
of God hath been, is, and can be only revealed." 

XL Ail such revelations of the " universal and 
saving light," must be consonant indeed with the 
scriptures, since both have a common and compe- 



209 

tent origin ; they " neither do nor can ever contra- 
dict the outward testimony of the scriptures, or 
right and sound reason." 

XII. Still, these modern revelations are in no 
wise to be tried by the scriptures ; they " are to be 
subjected to the examination, neither of the out- 
ward 34 testimony of the scriptures, nor of the natu- 
ral reason of man." 

XIII. Man is such a degenerate creature that in 
his natural state he " can know nothing aright; 
yea, his thoughts and conceptions concerning God 
and things spiritual, until he be disjoined from this 
evil seed, and united to the divine light, are unpro- 
fitable both to himself and others." 

XIV. " God, out of his infinite love, hath so 
loved the world, that he hath given his only Son a 
light, that whosoever believeth in him should be 
saved; and this light enlighteneth the hearts of all 
in a day, in order to salvation, if not resisted : nor 
is it less universal than the seed of sin, being the 
purchase of his death, who tasted death for every 
many 

XV. By this doctrine the difficulties of religion 
'.' are easily solved," and the catholic view of the 
means of grace entirely superseded ; since the 
heathen every where can be saved in Christ, " if 
they suffer his seed and light to take place (in which 
light, communion with the Father and Son is en- 
joyed) so as of wicked men to become holy:" so 
that it is an error to aver " the absolute necessity 
of the outward knowledge " of the death of Christ, 
" in order to the obtaining its saving effect ; among 

27 



210 

whom the Remonstrants of Holland have been 
chiefly wanting, and many other assertors of Uni- 
versal Redemption, in that they have not placed the 
extent of this salvation in that divine and evangeli- 
cal principle of light and life, wherewith Christ 
hath enlightened every man that comes into the 
world, which is excellently and evidently held forth 
in these scriptures, Gen. 6 : 3. Deut. 30 : 14. John 7 
1 : 7, 8, 9. Rom. 10 : 8, Tit. 2 : 11," 

XVI. Those who " resist not this light — are 
justified in the sight of God ;" since " in them is 
produced an holy, pure, and spiritual birth.;" so 
that "justification — is all one with sanctification." 

XVII. Those in whom " this — birth is fully 
brought forth," become presently " perfect;" in 
a somewhat qualified sense, that "admits of a 
growth;" connected with the possibility of sinning^ 
where the mind doth not most diligently and watch- 
fully attend unto the Lord." 

XVIIL There is no such thing ordinarily as the 
conservation of saints, or their infallible perseve- 
rance to glory ; many saints on the contrary apos- 
tatize utterly : yet there may be attained, by some 
rare ones, a condition of maturity, " from which 
there cannot be a total apostacy." 

XIX. The inward light in the instar omnium of 
the ministry ; by which all its acts are to be plenarily 
guided; by it alone can there be a true -call of God 
to the work, or a valid ordination ; with it, the au- 
thority is full, " without human commission or lite- 
rature ; r35 in its exercises and services, no salary is 
to be given or received ; though possibly, in case 



211 

of want, what is " needful for meat and clothing'' 
may be received by preachers, if they feel " liberty 
given them in the Lord ;" about which, however, 
the inward counsellor is in every case specifically 
to be consulted. 

XX. Women have as good a right to preach as 
men, and are as legitimately and as often called to 
the work of the ministry. 

XXL " All true and acceptable worship to God, 
is offered in the inward and immediate moving and 
drawing of his own Spirit," without all restriction 
" to places, times, or persons." Other worship, the 
whole of it, is resolvable into " superstitions, will- 
worship, and abominable idolatry in the sight of 
God ; which are to be denied, rejected, and sepa- 
rated from, in this day of his spiritual arising;" 
whatever favors from God or man it might have 
anciently received. 36 

XXII. " Baptism is a pure and spiritual thing, 
to wit, the baptism of the Spirit ma&Jire ;" attended 
with no outward observance : and " the baptism of 
infants, is a mere human tradition." 

XXIII. The Lord's supper is much in the same 
predicament. It might have been " for the cause of 
the weak — even used in the church for a time," with 
other obsolete and unprofitable ceremonies ; " all 
which are commanded with no less authority and 
solemnity than the former ; yet seeing they are but 
the shadows of better things, they cease in such as 
have obtained the substance" 

XXIV. The magistrate has no right to inter- 
meddle with the affairs of the church or the laws of 



212 

conscience ; but ought to do his duty impartially in 
his own secular sphere. 

XXV. All outward and ordinary signs of reve- 
rence and respect ; " such as the taking off the hat 
to a man, the bowings and cringings of the body., 
and such other salutations of that kind ;" and all 
vain and unprofitable sports ; all heathen number- 
ing of months, days, and so forth, contrary to nu- 
merical simplicity ; all plural speech to one person ; 
all gay and beauteous clothing ; all war and resis- 
tance of evil ; all swearing, before magistrates and 
elsewhere ; all slavery ; and all proud conformity to 
" the world's people," in words, manners, or equi- 
page : all these are absolutely unlawful and wrong. 

XXVI. God hath no absolute purpose of salva- 
tion to any individuals ; and it is all a matter of 
chance who gets or stays converted to the truth ; as 
all have equal opportunity in the light, and the will 
is left in every sense free and fortuitous. 

XXVII. Respecting the " eternal damnation " of 
the wicked ; the reality of hell torments ; the cer- 
tainty and evidence of a state future and immortal ; 
the resurrection of the body ; the millennium ; the 
end of the world; and the day of judgment: there 
is a remarkable vacancy in all their enunciations. 
Barclay almost wholly omits even the incidental 
treatment of these topics ; and is very unsatisfactory, 
loose, and cursory, in what he says. Some of the 
most important of them, I believe, he never men- 
tions. In an index or " table of chief things," of 
sixteen pages, suffixed to his volume, there is no 
such " chief thing*' as punishment, wicked, depra- 



213 

vity, resurrection, perdition, hell, damnation, im- 
mortality, eternity, futurity, regeneration, repen- 
tance, humility, hope, despair, assurance, fanaticism, 
bigotry, martyrdom, incarnation, trinity, atone- 
ment, expiation, propitiation, sacrifice, justice, sa- 
tisfaction, penalty, unpardonable, pardon, confes- 
sion, supplication, intercession, mediation, mediator, 
means of grace, mercy, righteousness, orthodoxy, 
heterodoxy, wisdom : while such " chief things " 
are there as, woman, William Barclay, voices, ves- 
pers, turks, titles, tithes, theseus' boat, taulerus, talk? 
tables, silence, shoe-maker, servetus, seed, sect, sax- 
ony, rustic, recreations, ranters, quakers, plays, 
physics, oil, number, liturgy, letter, laic, hai eben 
yokdan, freely, exorcism, ear, dancing, clothes, cler- 
gy, calvinists, bow, appearances, anicetus ! Their 
views of sin, law, justice, atonement, mercy, ac- 
countability, repentance, perdition, genuine affec- 
tions in religion as contra-distinguished and discri- 
minated from spurious, and the truth so clearly re- 
vealed in the word of God that a man (no matter 
who) will be lost for ever in point of fact, who dies 
without obeying the gospel ; their views of these 
vital subjects of " truth and soberness " are, I fear, 
exceedingly superficial and worthless, vague and 
erroneous : — while, for the honor of their omniscient 
light, they have to act as if they knew all things 
about all things ! 

XXVIII. On the subject of the christian Sabbath, 
or as the beloved apostle calls it, The Lord's day, 
Rev. 1 : 10. Friends have discovered that there is 
no such thing under the gospel ; that all that was 



214 

judaical and evanescent, as the vapors at the rise of 
light ; that to observe the first day of the week is 
probably convenient and of christian expediency: 
but that the "fourth command,'' either virtually or 
literally, has any " moral obligation," they are " not 
so superstitious as to believe ;" nor do they <; super- 
stitiously strain the scripture for another reason" 
besides that of expediency, as they " have meetings 
also for worship at other times.'' 

This is a very evil feature, I think, of their ortho- 
dox system. Those who know Friends, in this coun- 
try at least, may judge of the principle by its fruits, 
Let all observe their practices. They regard the day 
of rest as abrogated, and judaical ; and typical mere- 
ly, and so temporary : although its obligation 
is fixed in the decalogue, where no other com- 
mandment of the tex is abrogated ; and though it 
is there declared to be no judaizing day, but con- 
tinued from the creation of the world, and at that 
time tico thousand five hundred years old when 
the Jewish dispensation commenced ; and though 
no statute of abolition can be found in the New 
Testament, but simply an indication, sufficient and 
conclusive, of its change from the seventh to the first 
of the week, in commemoration of the new crea- 
tion finished and all - very good " and infinitely 
more glorious than the former ! and though Jesus 
Christ declares to us that " the Sabbath was made 
for man ;" mark, he says not for the Jews — centuries 
before they existed, but— for man ! and though all 
the moral reasons now exist, for something stronger 
than expediency to bind the conscience of man to 



215 

the service and worship of his Creator, which ever 
did exist ! and though God hath put his seal on its 
observance most notably in all ages of the christian 
era, and his brand of judgments marked and terrible 
on the violators of its sanctity ! and though to take 
away the time when God is to be worshipped, is to 
take away his worship from the earth ! and though 
thje scath of ruin, menacingly rests on those places 
of profligacy and infidelity, in nominal Christendom, 
where the Sabbath is profaned ; so as to demon- 
strate palpably the fact that OCT WITHOUT THE 
SABBATH, IS WITHOUT CHRISTIANS 
TY 37 

But I have sketched an outline which exhibits 
Quakerism much as it is, in its best features ; for 
all the symbols which they show, are the master- 
pieces of the society, of which the vast majority 
know only enough for implicit confidence, in what 
their inspired leaders have, with care, concert, and 
some perplexity, prepared ; as their if yearly epis- 
tles," and other public documents ; which are gene- 
rally, in my judgment, both more correct, and less 
exceptionable every way, than their primitive and 
standard writings ; and much better than one in 
twenty of their members, either knows, thinks, or 
feels. You, who know what Christianity is, can 
judge whether Quakerism is at all consistent with 
it ; whether it ought to be doctrinally tolerated and 
practically approved ; whether I err in having some 
special zeal for its extirpation, as a moral nuisance 
in the community; and to how great an extent I 
may have mistaken my duty in matter or manner, 



216 

while inveighing against a specious counterfeit 
which is not only not Christianity, but seductive and 
false to the hopes of the soul ! and which (by its 
ostentatious pageantry of plainness and some quali- 
ties of sensible comfort and economy involved in 
it — which are prodigiously over-valued ordinarily 
and the appeal of which is to the sympathies and 
the senses and the temporal convenience mainly 
after all) obtrudes itself plausibly on the feelings of 
the "unlearned" and the "unstable;" who like 
Quakerism remarkably ; even while they dislike "the 
holy scriptures," and impiously " wrest them to 
their own destruction." It is no slander of the so- 
ciety, but a plain and proveable verity which I can 
myself most solemnly attest, that of all sects of 
serious professors in Christendom, they have a soli- 
tary preference, or rather pre-eminence, in the esti- 
mate of infidels! It was the dying declaration of 
the author of the Age of Reason — very like the age 
of foxian light — t)iat he decisively preferred them 
and wished to be buried in their cemetery ! the dis- 
tinguished praise of the sage of Lanark and his fe- 
male coadjutors, has not been more equivocal or 
less cordial, in their late memorable missionary 
illuminations toward " the natives " of the United 
States ! And sceptics of all sorts, socinian and 
others, give them a preference, which a christian 
would abhor! See £?- John, 7: 7. 15: 16-21, es- 
pecially 19. "The seed of the serpent" is never 
pleased or pacific toward "the seed of the woman"— 
that is toward Christ and christians ; James, 4 : 4, 
though sometimes robed in celestial attire, its smooth- 



217 

ness, and softness, and passivity of tenderness, and 
love to every thing, commend its pretension to the 
confidence of thousands. " For there shall arise false 
Christs and false prophets, and shall show great 
signs and wonders ; insomuch that, if it were possi- 
ble, they shall deceive the very elect." Matt. 24 : 24. 

Before I conclude this prolonged introduction, I 
would offer some remarks on two topics in connexion 
with the synopsis ; which, quoting from Barclay 
alone, I have endeavored so to display as hopefully 
to stand proof against even the suspicion of inten- 
tional wrong. 

The first is the subject of the trinity. It is my 
own persuasion that the received orthodox state- 
ment of our common creeds, (those of the church 
of England, the Methodist Episcopal, the Baptist, 
the Lutheran, the Moravian, and all other protes- 
tants even generically of the stamp of the Reforma- 
tion,) is not that of Friends. On the contrary, I 
believe them all, and especially the ' orthodox,' to 
be at best, sabellians, or most equivocal mystics, on 
that grand article. They deny the distinction 
of persons in the Godhead ; the hypostatical 
description of the divine nature ! and yet they 
say so many things that are true, and so many 
that are imposing, that the absence of sagacity 
will always favor their ' orthodox ' pretension, more 
than its presence. Penn is their great cham- 
pion on this article, which their greater champion, 
Barclay, plainly evades : on whose lucubrations re- 
specting it, and those of the modern ' orthodox,' I 
also would " show mine opinion." 

28 



218 

1. Penn utterly mis-states what he vilifies ; using 
person as we and all protestants use it not, as it is 
used on common subjects, implying a distinct ex- 
istence. Hence he resolves our doctrine into tri- 
theism : and entertains his readers with playing off 
a reductio ad absurdiun. with scintillating tire- 
works and other u sparks " that his light u has 
kindled." against the absurdities that he makes him- 
self; insolently and unfairly sporting about u three 
eternal entities" or "three eternal nothings," and 
so forth. He does it all too,, on the assumption that 
our doctrine is essentially ruinous to the unity of 
the divine nature, as if ice believed in three Gods ; 
and as if he, and the lights that see with him. were 
the only sound defenders of the faith that " there 
is but one only, the living and true God." He im= 
plies that " separate and distinct " personalties, is 
our creed : as if what is " distinct " in some re- 
spects, must necessarily be •'■' separate" in all or in 
the same respects : and so, when he has got,, by 
that Jesuitical sophism or rather •'•'sly" involution, 
the persons of the Godhead " separated. " his induc- 
tive absurdities become considerable, 

2, It is impossible for enlightened believers of 
the truth to acknowledge the corrupters of this re= 
vealed doctrine : and all the sect are in this con- 
demnation- Of one party, no one will doubt thai 
this is truth. And who are the • orthodox 2' Those 
who uphold William Penn as an inspired and illus- 
trious teacher in religion, and a most worthy minis= 
ter of Jesus Christ ! who endorse his Socinian or 
Sabeilian errors, and canonize his revilings against 



219 

the truth ! who vindicate equally him, and Barclay, 
aud Fox, as inspired teachers sent from God ! and 
who place their writings on a par with f* the oracles 
of God ;" declaring them, and more constantly 
honoring them in conduct, as of even " greater " 
authority. 

3. Their confession on this article is very am- 
biguous and insufficient. At best it seems to me 
rather an obscuration than an elucidation of what 
they believe — if indeed they do formally and fully 
believe any thing. To tell us that they believe in 
" the sacred Three," or " the Three that bear re- 
cord in heaven," is not enough; nor yet, in the 
words of Penn, that they " never have disowned a 
Father, Word, and Spirit, which are One, but men's 
inventions ;" nor yet that they believe them " ac- 
cording to the scriptures:" which last is a mere 
circle. It is like saying, " I believe in all truth ; 
my creed is orthodoxy ; I believe exactly right ; or, 
I believe the whole Bible !" It is plainly no symbol 
of faith, and no symbol at all, where one will not 
state, in plain and definite language, the premises, 
and what he does totidem verbis believe. In such 
case a man may refer to cited passages, for illus- 
tration or for proof; but never properly for state- 
ment ! This, honesty requires him to give in the 
language and style of definition, using the perspi- 
cuous language of his mother tongue and the words 
of his own conceptions on the topic. It is plain 
that to quote scripture, is not the way of showing 
what I believe or the sense of scripture as I entertain 
it. The truth is given to the church, for confession 



220 

and diffusion ; and through the church, to all man- 
kind " for the obedience of faith :" and hence the 
policy of a private creed, or the privilege of holding 
one thing and preaching or professing another, is 
abomination, is odious sin ! It is just the way which 
apostles did not; 2 Cor. 2 : 17 ; 4 : 1-3. 1 Thess. 
2 : 3-20 ; and the very way which any moderns do 
sinningly alone. Paul merely uses the language of 
his slanderers, in 2 Cor» 12 : 16, that he may in- 
dignantly refute it, as he does ! it is shocking to 
observe some authors (though Friends I now mean 
less) mistake it utterly ; and abuse it too, as the 
sanction of an odious system of priest-craft and 
dishonesty ! 

4. Friends are hence " tender " of adopting the 
common language of trinitarians ; disapproving it 
and substituting the words of scripture, in a way 
faulty and deceptive ! " They have carefully avoided 
entangling themselves by the use of unscriptural 
terms, invented to define Him who is undefinable, 
scrupulously adhering to the safe and simple lan- 
guage of the holy scriptures, as contained in Matt, 
28 : 18, 19, and 1 John, 5 : 7." Evans' Exposition, 
p. 39. I object to this (1) that the " terms " were 
not so " invented." It was not to define Him; but 
the doctrine which we believe to be revealed of him, 
that the terms are used : and when used, they were 
not invented , but only applied. (2) Friends would 
become " entangled," it seems, by using them. 
Why 1 Other professors are disentangled and re- 
lieved by their use. Do they believe something very 
different from the common faith, after all, < ortho- 



221 

dox ' as they are 1 (3) But they say the terms are 
" unscriptural." Which one] that of trinity 1™ but 
this means only threeness or the quality of being 
three in some sense ! Do they believe then that 
"the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost," 
are three in no sense, because they are confessedly 
one in a more obvious sense ] and yet do they be- 
lieve in the sacred Three] Three — what] Is there 
no noun in the language, with which a grammatical 
conscience, that peculiarly respects the affection of 
number, can parse it possibly] We say, three per- 
sons or personalities ; and if you ask us what we 
mean by such " unscriptural " words : we reply, 
first, what do you mean, by a plural adjective that 
agrees with no noun] what do Friends mean, or 
do they mean nothing, by the word " three 1" Here 
I think, if the glory of the mercy-seat did not awe 
us to reserve, so near the ineffable shechinah that 
abides there, we might well adopt the facetiousness 
of Penn, and say that Friends believe in three 
" nothings ;" or, believe nothing in the " three !" 
It is just, to press them here : for the difficulty on 
their part is real, it is demonstrated, and it is evaded. 
Sometimes they even claim to believe the trinity, 
in an unqualified averment. Says Barclay of an 
opponent, (Brown,) " he will needs infer our de- 
nying of the trinity, albeit he cannot deny but he 
finds it owned by me." Strangely " owned " in- 
deed ! If Jesus Christ should " own " him, in the 
day of judgment, as ambiguously, it will be at least 
questionable which side of the Judge is the " right" 
one! Shortly afterward, he would "know of" 



222 

Brown, " m what scripture he rinds these words, 
that the Spirit is a distinct person of the Trinity ?™ 
He so ••' owns " the trinity then, as to deny the per- 
sonality of the three that constitute it ! or does he 
deny this only of the third, and not of the second, 
or the first ! What evidence has he that the Father 
is a person ; and not a principle, the mere primum 
mobile or ; eternal cause," of Plato ! or impulsive light 
of Fox \ Will Friends then (and Barclay is their 
confession of faith) divest each of the three of per- 
sonality ! and so have an impersonal God I a divinity 
without a person ! a God who is — the mere effigies 
of mechanical atheism ! And is this their vaunted 
and precious •' orthodoxy V If otherwise, where will 
they attach personality I To the Father ! what ! 
and deny it to the Son ! To the Son — and have 
two Gods, according to Penn ! To the Father and 
the Son, and not to the Spirit ! or, to all three — 
and have three Gods, according to the same in- 
spired authority ! or, to some one or two of the 
three, exclusively ! Pray, what evidence have we of 
the personality of any one of them, which does not 
also demonstrate the personality of each of them ! 
Is the Father not a person ! Or, when Friends pro- 
fess to believe in the Spirit, do they mean to deny 
his personality! and yet say that he "is God!" 
what ! is God impersonal again ! or, is it less than 
atheism to resolve the divinity into an impersonal 
existence ; the mere principium et fons of neces- 
sitated being ! The God of Friends, I experimen- 
tal^ know, is little other than an impersonal influ- 
ence or principle. In short, nothing is plainer than 



223 

that the revised modern ' Exposition/ of what 
" Friends believe " on this high article, needs far- 
ther expounding, and is necessarily liable to all 
the difficulties which Penn infers against the true 
and full trinitarian symbols. It is even in a much 
worse predicament than that into which he reduces 
the true doctrine sophistically ; since it simulates 
away the advantages of the doctrine, which are- 
adamantine, and which, while sinking in its own 
muddy waters, Quakerism still assumes or affects ! 
Yet really, it has no advantages. It makes more 
difficulties than it finds, and teaches all its friends 
to make them continuously. It defines nothing, and 
it settles nothing. Besides, it leaves them to,bc- 
lieve — what 1 I answer, vagueness, words, smoke, 
a mere code of negatives, and a great parade of 
'inspired'' orthodoxy! My great reason, however, 
for saying what this context contains, is two-fold— 
to show them that, if they are sound in what they 
profess, the very same difficulties (greatly increased) 
rest oppressively upon them, which the Unitarian 
Penn, and all other re vilers of the truth, allege against 
our doctrine : and to show also that there is no so- 
lution possible to language or to thought, which so 
elucidates scripture, establishes faith, and breaks an 
adversary — debellare superbos™ — as that doctrine, 
which the wise and the good of universal christen 
dom, that have been at all distinguished for these 
qualities, have eminently believed ! Second. I would 
tell Friends that it is puerile and silly to object 
to any word, merely because it is " unscriptural." 
Where is the expression "inward light" found, In 



224 

those scriptures ! Were it well in rue to object to 
it, merely on that ground 1 or to silent meetings, 
convincement, outicard testimony, plain language, 
and a number of others used by the society 1 What 
man, that objects not to the thing affirmed in John, 
1 : 14, would ever object to the term, ' unscriptural' 
as it is, of incarnation ? Besides, this silly softness 
ought much more to object to the translation of the 
inspired scriptures at all : since every word, it may 
be, of the new language is * unscriptural.' Our word 
God is unscriptural, primitively heathen and druidi- 
cal ; for no such word occurs in the scriptures, be- 
fore they were translated " by the will of man 1" I 
say again, the softness, so " tender," of which I 
speak, is infinitely silly. It would disgrace a school- 
boy ! I add — those who have studied the circum- 
ference, and the radii, and the centre of the wheel 
of universal heresy, as successive errorists are deve- 
loped or as history turns it to the view, (and nothing 
actually new comes up in its modern demonstra- 
tions,) know that where the thing on any subject is 
soundly believed, the term that suits it is seldom an 
offence or a difficulty. And I can " see clearly," as 
well &s feel powerfully, that Friends may hate some 
deeper reason than the allegation of " unscriptural," 
when they reject the terms trinity, person, and 
others of the sort, in their confession of what they 
believe. 

It sounds rather queer to me that Friends should 
all at once grow more enamored and reverential 
of that book, which is not " the word of God," than 
all its noblest unsuspected friends ! Just here they 



225 

must have — nothing but scripture language ! Just 
here " inward light " becomes very scriptural ; and 
what is scriptural becomes " a more noble and ex- 
cellent rule," if not " all their salvation, and all their 
desire !" Third* We use the term person, because* 
among other reasons, it suits the case better than 
any other : we use it in a sense special and appro- 
priate — to suit exactly that discrimination of the 
Godhead, as " the Father, and the Son, and the 
Holy Ghost," which the disclosures and the usages 
of scriptural revelation abundantly warrant and re- 
quire ! As previously shown, we neither understand 
nor believe any thing about the essential mode of 
the divine existence, the mode of the trinal deity ; 
or how it is that " the Word was in the beginning 
with God !" We only believe the fact. This is 
revealed, definable, intelligible ; " the great mystery 
of godliness," incontrovertibly ! The distinction is 
indispensable in all correct language and thought, 
touching the economical relations of the divine per- 
sons. The Father sent the Son ; the Son came 
into the world ; the Spirit applies and seals redemp- 
tion in our hearts. Did the Father die for us 1 did 
the Son accept the atonement l did the Spirit pro- 
nounce our absolution for his sake 1 Is it not in 
certain aspects proper to one to perform what it is 
not proper to the others to perform 1 Must we then 
distinguish or confound 1 And can we be correct 
while denuding the Godhead of all personality! or 
restricting it to any one, and denying it of course to 
two others of " the sacred three !" We use these 
' unscriptural r terms, for reasons so- valid and so- 

29 



226 

worthy, that we see no reason to intermit their 
use ; but more and more to retain it. They are fun- 
damental in their archetypes ; and indispensable in 
the symbols of " a good confession." But fourth, 
I deny that they are ' unscriptural.' Most evidently 
the thing is there, which they signify. If it is, then 
a proper and apposite term, a term expressive and 
philosophically legitimate, as person is, to represent 
the thing, is every way correct and not rightly 
termed ' unscriptural.' This is more important to 
be seen, on an article of faith that is primary even 
among fundamentals ; and which, like an everlast- 
ing rock of central ocean, the surges of heresy dash 
against, only to break themselves. " When he, the 
Spirit of truth, is come/' &c. says Christ. John 
16 : 7, 13, 14. In the same connection, he often 
calls him Comforter (jiapax/^rog) or Paraclete ; the 
same word which is applied personally to the Sa- 
vior himself, in 1 John, 2:1. In the passage above, 
he is masculine in the original, although it refers to 
" the Spirit of truth," in immediate apposition ; and 
the word spirit in the Greek is neuter : as used on 
purpose to indicate personality. Thus the masculine 
pronoun exeivog and the masculine 6v, are used fami- 
liarly in the same connection. See 14 : 26. 15 : 26. 
16 : 8, 13, 14, to which I refer for specimens of the 
style that pervades the Bible : a style that will bear 
inspection, experience, usage. What diluting folly 
would it be, as Dr. Dwight and others have success- 
fully shown, to render the phraseology of scripture 
on this subject impersonally, almost any where! 
But the very term person is used. See 2 Cor. 



227 

2 : 10 — " in the person of Christ ;" says the blessed 
Paul. The same word or phrase exactly, in 4 : 6, 
is repeated ; and might be well rendered, " the 
glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ." 
2 Thess. 1 : 9 is another instance ; " who shall be 
punished with everlasting destruction from the pre- 
sence (Greek — person) of the Lord, and from the 
glory of his power." I will quote only one other 
example ; Heb. 1 : 3. " who, being the brightness 
of his glory and the express image of his person :" 
whose ] The person of the Father ! yes, and as dis- 
tinguished, by necessary implication, from the person 
of the Son : and both as persons in the Godhead ! 
But, I forbear. In adverting to these specimens of 
what is scriptural, it is not my plan to write a disser- 
tation on the trinity. I must remark, however, once 
more, fifth, That Friends are in a dilemma which 
their light has made, and from which to be extri- 
cated is possible only in one way — and that is, can- 
didly, as individuals or as a society, to renounce the 
great meteor of their delusion ! They are at best in 
the common predicament of men. In truth, i. e. 
apart from a wonted simulation of being inspired, 
they know nothing in theology that the Bible has 
not directly or indirectly taught them ; and why will 
they not honestly acknowledge so certain a truth l If 
they would only acquire a release or manumission 
from the spell of ignorance, and fatuity, and keal 
dishonesty ; and willingly own their indebtedness to 
" the oracles of God ;" they might then be helped, 
by " the Bridegroom " and " the Bride," to make a 
proficiency in heavenly wisdom, from which now 



228 

their sincere sorcery necessarily precludes them - 
God will be no party to a cause ■• that loveth or 
maketh a lie " — as Quakerism is ! I have little or 
no hope of their valid improvement until their 
foundations of falsehood are exploded ; and so con- 
vinced is my whole soul of this, that I avow it as 
steadfastlv : whatever some judicious ones, who 
have comparatively never attended to the subject, 
may think or pronounce in the opposite. w They 
that forsake the law. praise the wicked : but such 
as keep the law. contend with them." Prow 
28 : 4. 5. 9. 13, 13,. 23. I reject therefore the idea 
that Friends, at their •• best estate." are • orthodox* 
or unequivocal, on the revealed doctrine of the 
Godhead. 

It is my own conviction that the power of the 
Quaker system is much more human than divine ; 
excessively more of the man than the Master : more 
fixed in dogmatizing, incomparably, than in de- 
monstration : that, apart from influence sectarian 
and clanish. there is precious little of pure chris- 
tian influence among them. Their leaders know 
not. learn not. study not. teach not. the pure 
expounded sense of "the oracles of God;" and 
hence their Christianity is mainly as equivocal 
and false, as their vaunted inspiration is a ridi- 
culous conceit, a most impudent lie. a fundamen- 
tal delusion and cheat of the destroyer ! The 
whole system is a mystical and false invention of 
men : founded in falsehood of the most insidious 
kind, which pervades and characterizes the whole 
concern of principles and persons — so far as they 



229 

are purely and exclusively under its influence. Who 
can honestly or consistently deny this 1 I answer — 
only those who are willing to endorse their preten- 
sions to immediate inspiration ! I do not say that 
no better influence comes on some of them in spite 
of their system. " The sun of righteousness " may 
shine through a mist, and vivify even the mental 
surface that his beams affect : and is the mist to be 
praised for that 1 

One ill feature of their system is that implicated 
in the forementioned topics — the virtual impersona- 
lity of their God. They, all of them, refuse to allow 
personality to the names of the Godhead. They say, 
the Spirit is God — but deny his personality : and 
they just as much deny it, distinctively, and wholly, 
to the Father and to the Son; resolving this into 
their "tender" respect for the "secondary rule" — 
almost as if that were a person ! Now what I fur- 
thermore allege is that in effect they deny it to the 
Godhead. I allege this as a fact, rather than an ar- 
gument ; and write it as a witness rather than a 
disputer. Their theology is debilitated, and ren- 
dered effete and powerless, by their totality within ; 
by an impersonal divinity of uncertain attributes, 
confused definition, and most mystified sanctity. 
Their God is — a principle, seed, light, and so forth, 
inserted in the soul ; " a measure of that power, 
virtue, spirit, life, and grace, that was in Christ 
Jesus : thus the seed of the kingdom, as a redeem- 
ing principle, is placed in the heart of every indi- 
vidual, ready to expand with the opening faculties 
of the soul, and to take the government of it, 



230 

from the first dawn of intellectual life : the gift 
of grace, as an operative power in the hearts of 
men. was universally dispensed to the whole hu- 
man race : by whose inward operations in our hearts, 
we are sanctified and prepared for an inheritance 
eternal in the heavens :" so that the greatest con- 
demnation " would be to resist that holy seed, which, 
as minded, would lead and incline every one to be- 
lieve it as it is offered unto them ; though it revealeth 
not in every one the outward and explicit knowledge 
of it, nevertheless it always assenteth to it where it 
is declared." It " ought to be distinguished from 
every other influence which actuates the human 
mind. We therefore profess and firmly believe, that 
the liffht of Christ, in the heart, is an unerring 
guide, and the primary rule of faith and practice — 
that it is the (£/* only medium e5 £0 through which 
we can truly and livingly attain to the {£?* know- 
ledge of God, and the mysteries of his heavenly 
kingdom. That the influences of the Holy Spirit 
must be sensibly experienced, in order to be avail- 
ing to us, is evident, in the very nature of things. 
To experience this essential qualification, it is our 
duty to retire inwardly to the measure of divine 
grace. We believe that the solemn duty of vocal 
prayer requires a special impulse. *-££ Whenever 
the gospel is really preached, it is preached bap- 
tizingly e £j^ C? in a greater or less degree. We 
profess the same faith, and the guidance of the 
same unerring principle/' I have selected the above 
1 orthodox ' specimens from ;; The testimony of the 
Society of Friends on the continent of America ;" 



231 

published in 1830 ; as one of the most improved 
specimens of Quakerism ; in which however, as the 
last sentence shows, they identify themselves with 
the whole foxian mass of by-gone inspiration : 
evincing, what is morally necessary, that any con- 
sistent Friend must go the whole, for the system. 
And why do they exclude the poor Hicksites, who 
are certainly Quakers, and just as much inspired 
as was Fox himself? In that famous ' Testimony ,' 
they call the persons of the Godhead, in the sophis- 
tical abuse of Penn, " separate and distinct ;" and 
declare that they " reject the terms " not only, but 
consider them "as conveying ideas too gross to be 
admitted ;" while they deny all distinct personality 
to each of "the three that bear record in heaven, 
the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost ; and " 
believe " [that] these three are one." I have en- 
deavored to select the above fairly, as showing their 
sense of them, altering nothing, except by the 
hands, which I have placed near passages that I 
wished to be particularly observed. Let no one for- 
get their ( orthodox' patronage. 

Let the reader consider that this impersonal di- 
vinity within, is the great leveller and leavener 
of their system ; that whatever it appears, when 
dressed up in its best to go abroad over " the con- 
tinent of America," its home character, its matter 
of fact identity, its real influence and pious prac- 
tisings every day, "in meeting" and elsewhere, is 
interior, indefinite, delusive, fanatical, super-spirit- 
ual, " unerring," and inspired! In the name of the 
great God I proclaim — that the system is fun da- 



232 

mentally wrong ; it is not Christianity ; it is an 
abominable delusion ; which it is the duty of all 
men, and very sacredly of all christians, uni- 
tedly to reject, deny, and reprove ; " having no fel- 
lowship" with the works of its "darkness," its pre- 
tension, and its pompous folly ! All its efforts will 
not do, for those who have their eyes open and are 
satisfied with Christianity. It is sinking in the wa- 
ters of its own perturbation ; and this conspiracy of 
" yearly meetings," and the charity of the ill-in- 
formed, may only avail to elevate it above the wave 
for — a little longer breathing, before it sinks, by its 
own weight, to rise no more — till the day of judg- 
ment ! The anathema of the eternal God, " the 
Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost," rests on 
that system that dares to mystify his revelation, de- 
clare it not his word, and tell the world, as one of 
its ' orthodox' statements on "the continent of 
America," that the universal inward light is " an 
unerring guide, and the primary rule of faith and 
practice ;" italicising it themselves, and proclaiming 
it at the same time "the only medium" of the 
saving knowledge of God! And this is ortho- 
doxy ! — this the stuff which the church of God is re- 
quired charitably to succor, sanction, fellowship ! 

Any unprejudiced man of sense can see that it is 
all nothing but 'orthodox' materialism; with its 
sensible influences, " the operative power — placed 
in the heart of every individual ; ready to expand — 
and take the government," no doubt. Very much 
like the little cramped mainspring of a just-wound- 
up watch, tending mechanically to start all the 



2m 

wheels, "ready to expand and take the govern- 
ment," and make all the subaltern machinery 
hum again ; if one would just " retire inwardly " 
and clear the way for it, and unfix the balance- 
wheel of a sound mind. It is ignorant and void 
of spirituality: — as spiritual as impulse, and sensi- 
ble influences ; as spiritual as clock-work, and the 
difference between rest and motion ; as spiritual 
as — machinery, stagnant or going, with its " mea- 
sure of that power, virtue, spirit, life, grace, seed, 
principle, light within," and so forth: but not so 
spiritual as — chemistry or common sense. Blind 
is the dotard who can think it the same with Chris- 
tianity. 

I have always observed that when the human 
mind adopts any false system of religion, it com- 
mences its ingenious toils of devout sophistry and 
specious lying to sustain it. Hence he that either 
" loveth " or " maketh a lie," turns to it in confor- 
mity, and is thereafter sincerely and sinfully de- 
ceived: and the lie in turn makes him! O the 
danger every way, to character, to state, to des- 
tiny, of a false system of religion! I regard it as 
beyond conception or description cursed of God 
and execrable to saints. I do not say that the ad- 
vocates of Quakerism know that they are lying : 
but convinced I am in the sight of God that they 
might know it! they might but for this — a false 
system of religion is the most deceitful thing in the 
world : for, it seems as if its helpers were helping 
God, doing duty, defending holiness, co-operating 
with Jesus Christ, and performing prodigies of be- 

30 



234 

neficence. In this way the mind feels, whatever it 

thinks, as if it was prosperously ; working its pas- 
sage ' to heaven: hence, the greatest enemy it 
meets,, is one that mcorruptly holds the truth and 
manifests it. Hence the only way to make an 
opposing demonstration of any value, is to with- 
stand it courageously and with aggressive onset. 
Half-way measures will only nourish the hydra till 
more heads are grown. And who knows not that 
such wisdom is not " from above," and hath its de- 
nunciation only in the book of God ! That sorry 
softness with its eyes shut, that asks quarter for 
error, would, at some safer opportunity, ask license 
for sin : for often the brood of its sympathies are 
marvellously like ••' a generation of vipers," whom 
true benevolence would rather warn to " escape 
the damnation of hell." 

The other topic, on which I design to remark, is 
that of war and the passive endurance of injuries. 
Barclay gives the strange views of Friends in the 
following formal proposition,, on which he enlarges ; 
'-•' That it is not lawful for christians to resist evil, or 
to war or fight in any case." This is in brief exactly 
what they profess. Without discussing the volu- 
minous theme. I will state at least some of the 
results, in which my own conviction rests, in 
opposition to their views, which I once " verily 
thought " true. 

1. Friends magnify the relative importance of 
the matter, out of symmetry and against apostolic 
example. They appear to me. many of them, to 
place their views of pacification. — just where Paul 



235 

puts " Jesus Christ and him crucified ;" at the 
centre of the system. The most important pacifi- 
cation in the world is that with God through the 
glorious atonement ! Thus, often have I conversed 
with a Friend about the way of salvation — when, 
instead of any fixity of thought to the point, he 
would go off at a tangent and with a noise, inquir- 
ing, ' Does thee believe' in the lawfulness of war'? 
or that any christian can be a soldier V Barclay in- 
deed seems to think that the things are totally 
incompatible ; so that the man who can reconcile 
them, " may be supposed also to have found a way 
to reconcile God with the devil, Christ with anti- 
christ, light with darkness, and good with evil. 
But if this is impossible, as indeed it is, so will also 
the other be impossible ; and men do but deceive 
themselves and others, while they boldly adventure 
to establish such absurd and impossible things." 
This, it must be confessed, is not begging the 
question ! 

2. They say many things here, which, however 
true, are not to the purpose : As that war is a great 
and dreadful evil ; that revenge is wrong ; and that 
soldiers are often wicked and revengeful. There 
is no need of saying what nobody disputes. The 
question is — Is war, or the taking of life in certain 
cases, or all sorts of resistance of evil, positively 
unlawful 1 and that not " for christians " only, but 
for all men ; so that, if their position be true, it can 
be done at all by any one, only in a way of sinning 
against God 1 This is what I understand them to 
affirm ; and their doctrine, in argument and fact, 



236 

extends to capital punishment, and the power and 
functions of the magistracy — nay, to the very or- 
ganization of society ; to its order and protection ; 
to the nethermost foundations of civil government. 
If a thief may be justly slain with the sword by 
the ministers of law, why not a gang of them? if 
a bandit, why not a banditti 1 and if a foraging 
party of freebooters, why not an iniquitous or an 
invading nation 1 Friends say, ' Apprehend them, 
treat them kindly, and confine them for life ; but 
not take life, for this is what we cannot give.' What 
folly ! How are we to apprehend them, when we 
may not use the sword, or any hostile force, or 
" resist evil in any case :" while they use sword, 
pistol, musket, and cannon 1 Admirable ! " He 
beareth not the sword in vain ;" saith " the outward 
testimony of scripture !" and here this inward-light 
testimony expounds the way of it ! It is not neces- 
sary to travel very far south to find nullification. 
Their views are treason against common sense, 
against their own safety and fire-side enjoyments, 
and against the commonwealth, to say nothing of 
the sanctions of Christianity ! I should think the 
proper means of apprehending them, w T ould be to 
coax them to become Friends. By this means, it 
is hoped, the prophecies are all to be fulfilled, in 
turning " swords into ploughshares and spears into 
pruning hooks ;" so that the nations, becoming 
quite friendly, are to " learn war no more !" So 
we go, swimmingly along, down the stream of 
prosperity, to halcyon moorings and a certain port ! 
We are all to become Friends, it seems, 



237 

3. Friends often speak of the present dispensa- 
tion, as if the principles involved were not of moral 
and perpetual obligation, or of unalterable eternal 
sameness. " It is not lawful for christians.'''' If it 
was ever right to take life or to wage war, it may 
be right again. The principles concerned are all 
anchored in the nature of things, which results from 
the nature of God, and is therefore unchangeable. 
If revenge is wrong (as it certainly is) in the nature 
of things, then it was never right, and never will 
be, irrespective of dispensations. 

4. They often forget that the sin of taking life 
consists wholly in that, which is more abundantly 
sin where life is not taken — in malevolence or per- 
sonal hatred and ill-feeling. " Whosoever hateth 
his brother, is a murderer : and ye know that no 
murderer hath eternal life abiding in him." From 
which I infer (1) that there are thousands of " mur- 
derers " that no human law can implead, and mil- 
lions that appear as respectable as Friends. (2) 
That murder is properly distinct, and separate too, 
from taking life ; so that it exists, in the immense 
majority of cases, where life is not taken ; and 
consequently may not exist where life is taken. 

5. The argument is vain, which, premising that 
God alone is the author and arbiter of life, as he is 
alone its great proprietor too, declares inferentially 
that therefore the thesis of Friends is true : for, 
obviously, if God is so the owner of all life, he may 
take it in any way he pleases ; mediately or by the 
agency of others, as well as immediately by his own 
agency. Hence, men hold the life of all the irra- 



238 

tionals in possession; for God hath given us the 
responsible usufruct or quasi w allodium, in the 
magna charta of his empire : for use, not abuse, 
indeed ; and to the end of time. Gen. 9 : 1-7. 
1 Tim. 3 : 5. show our title. 

On Noah, and in him on all mankind, 

The charter was conferred, by which we hold 

The flesh of animals in fee, and claim 

O'er all we feed on, power of life and death. 

But read the instrument and mark it well : 

Th' oppression of a tyrannous control 

Can find no warrant there. Feed then, and yield 

Thanks for thy food. Carnivorous through sin, 

Feed on the slain, but spare the living brute ! — Cowper. 

Brutes can feel. They suffer and enjoy ; and are 
proper objects of benevolence, human and divine. 
" A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast ; 
but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel." 
Prov. 12 : 10. But does it necessarily infer cruelty, 
in the man that takes their life, under this charter 1 
May not a man, with tender christian feelings, im- 
molate them for food 1 If he is cruel, is cruelty ne- 
cessary to the act 1 and is not cruelty to brutes, of 
the very same quality, though the form and the de- 
gree may differ, with cruelty or malevolence in 
higher relations 1 A feeling of cruelty in any as- 
pect, is like a feeling of cruelty in all other aspects ; 
it is homogeneous, it is bad, it is contrary to the 
law of God. But if merely to take life does not 
necessarily make a murderer, or a fiend, or no 
christian, of a farmer, or a butcher, or a fisherman, 
we mav here see in its lower relations the certain 



239 



difference between taking life— as one thing, and 
malevolence— which is another. Whence, 

6. God has frequently and in recorded instances 
authorized the former, but never-, never the other, 
God never did, and morally he never could, (it is 
not improper to say that " he cannot deny himself,") 

AUTHORIZE ONE MAN TO HATE ANOTHER ! He 

authorized Israel under Moses and Joshua, and 
subsequently under many other leaders, to exter- 
minate the wicked Canaanites and others : but did 
he authorize malevolence to their persons'? or ne- 
cessitate it, by the order or jrae service \ not at all. 
Take a case ; 1 Sara. 15 : 'i, 22, 28, 32, 33, « Then 
said Samuel, Bring ye hither to me Agag, the king 
of the Amalekites. And Agag came unto him 
delicately. And Agag said, Surely the bitterness 
of death is past. And Samuel said, As thy sword 
hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be 
childless among women. And Samuel hewed 
Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal."^ 
Would not Barclay have denounced him, had he 
been there 1 would he not have rebuked, among 
"absurd and impossible things," an attempt to show 
the utter consistency of the act of the prophet, with 
" the mind of Christ '!" or, because it occurred under 
a former dispensation, are we to neglect the ever- 
lasting principles on which it is founded 1 or, be- 
cause Saul spared Agag, are we to panegyrize his 
"tender mercies," to the dishonor of the holy man 
of God, who, with his own hand, sacrificed him 
"before the Lord in Gilgal T Did Samuel hate 
Agag, or was the act on his part malevolent I We 



u 

^ht almost as iriselj ass lent m 

issuing the order which Samuel sir itec 

or. was rt o I "murder™ in Samuel to obey 
authority of Jehovah ! or. was not Saul the better 
man of the two. a: least die : aimer in the case, and 
more :ke — a Friend ! How many frothy 

. ruers might h? pealed to the million, the 

ruajoriv very plausibly against him ; and settled 
by acclamation the point u that it is not lawful for 
christians :; resist evil, or to war or right in any 

e !" Jus: is now, the soperficia] multitude be- 
lieve according to their selfishness, their education, 
or their caprice ; and even :he plurality of "the 
great vulgar" yield to the same control, undis- 
ciplined by evidence ! He:::e 

7. I: comes bt pass :bservably that many oppo- 
se rs of the plainly revealed doctrine of eternal 
punishment, as aniversalists, unitarians, infix 
pseudo-philanthropists of every description/ grow 

specially tender in their clemency on the : 
of capital punishment, war. the importance of the 

eacc society," and the superlative excellence ; 
the ethics or creed of passive endurance! I do not 
ss thai Che "peace society" may not be in the 
main a good and valuable thin. :: : - : me 
sound and worthy allies are not to be found with 
it; or that it will not become fas I sincerely pray 
that it may 7 singly useful, irise, poircr- 

ful. in the pacification of society. I only say that 
theri is an affinity or element congenial, between 
punishment in time and punishment in eternity; 
punishment of law. human and divine ; punishment 



241 

by the magistracy, of this world and that which is 
to come : and that, as the principles are much the 
same in both cases, it is as easy, and almost as 
perilous, to reason wrong on either as the other. 
Hence some and even many maddened apostates 
or virulent infidels, who are not altogether dispas- 
sionate or disinterested inquirers, are found to 
oppose those wholesome principles of society, with- 
out which its civil or domestic existence would 
become impossible — as sure and full experience 
shows. They endeavor to prove the wickedness 
of the executive act; of the judiciary that sanctions 
it ; of the legislation that ordains it ! as if wickedness 
were necessary to it ; as if Washington did not 
sign the death-warrant of Andre with emotion and 
with tears ; as if benevolence itself would not sac- 
rifice a man who makes himself a nuisance against 
the life of others ; as if Quakerism ought not to be 
put down, if it is false ; as if justice were hostile 
to mercy ; as if one ought to have mercy less on 
the commonwealth, than on him who would burn it 
to ashes for the sake of pilfering among the ruins, 
the relics of its treasure ; as if there was but one 
way of cheapening human life ; as if God could 
not punish, without spite ; as if his punitive justice 
were any other than a modification of his infinite 
benevolence ; as if benevolence itself were not the 
inspiration of his way, when he "punishes the 
wicked with everlasting destruction, from the pre- 
sence of the Lord and from the glory of his power !" 
By such reasoners, it is often alleged that capital 
punishment is useless, since it does not prevent 

31 



242 

crime notoriously. I reply (1) This might prove 
possibly its inexpediency, but never its unlawfulness. 
(2) It is absurd to say it prevents none, because all 
is not prevented. And it is manifestly false. The 
fear of capital punishment prevents millions of 
murders — that would otherwise be perpetrated ! It 
prevents, and controls, and intimidates, to a degree 
incalculably great. What but moral restraint ordi- 
narily coerces the mutual hatred of men 1 and what 
moral restraint exists, beside the sword of armed 
authority, sufficiently gross and palpable to check 
their fury who fear no retribution from the throne 
of God 1 (3) All their reasoning is sufficiently 
refuted from the ordinance of God, establishing 
capital punishment, by his own authority in this 
world, and by more than this — his own awful agency 
in the next. 

8. The right to take life, and consequently to 
redress wrongs equitably in any other way, has 
been solemnly and fully delegated in the word of 
God to the magistracy of this world ; which is 
hence his own ordinance, obligatory alike on the 
actions and the consciences of his creatures uni- 
versally. This could be proved from innumerable 
places of the New Testament ; from the crucifixion- 
scene of three sufferers, and the history of the abuses 
of power attending it ; and from one or two select- 
ed passages soon to be considered. It is even im- 
plied in the " fourteenth thesis " of Barclay ; where, 
in reference to the power of the magistrate, though 
he says nothing of divine authority with him, he 
avers that " the law is for the transgressor, and 



243 

justice to be administered upon all, without respect 
of persons." And how could this be, if armed au- 
thority in the state, with the power of life and death 
in its possession, were morally wrong, contrary to 
the will of God, a system only of legalized and im- 
pious murder l Without the power of life and death, 
government is a nullity and law contemptible ; the 
foundations of society are everted, and the hopes 
of the sublunary universe expire ! Yet, what Friend 
could wear a sword or wield one 1 He who thinks 
all war and resistance of evil, necessarily a diabo- 
lical crime, and " unlawful for christians ?" or, he 
who thinks war in some cases just? But such 
an one is no Friend. He has lost cast, and gone 
away from the luminary within. I refer here 
mainly to Rom. 13 : 1-7, or the whole chapter ; 
where we are plainly taught the following things : 
(1) That civil government, as such, is a divine in- 
stitution ; " the authorities that be are ordained of 
God," as a regency of his own. (2) That their 
power includes the prerogative of life and death, 
according to equity. (3) That they are hence au- 
thorized to make war, on certain occasions and 
responsibly to the Supreme Commander, against 
malefactors of all sorts ; one of them, and any 
one, and millions of them, other things being equal. 
(4) That they are charged with the repose and 
order of society, against all insurgents that would 
disturb it ; for the magistrate " is the minister of 
God to thee for good. But if thou do that which 
is evil, be afraid ; for he beareth not the sword in 
vain : for he is the minister of God, a revenger to 



244 

execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." Hence 
(5) That it is the duty inalienably, and ought to 
be a part of the religion, of alUmen, to honor and 
obey the magistracy, in the due and lawful exercise 
of their power. " Wherefore ye must needs be 
subject, not only for wrath," (or fear of them,) " but 
also C^for conscience' sake." (6) We see the 
treason against God of one of the principles of 
Friends — that on which they refuse incorrigibly, 
either to bear arms in any case, or to pay the 
fines very properly levied against delinquents or 
exempts. They plead conscience! What right 
have they, I ask, to keep such a conscience 1 Is 
it conscience " resisting the ordinance of God 1" 
And what respect deserves it from man! I an- 
swer, just as much as it gets from God. It is 
nothing better than a piece of will-worship, ac- 
cording to the inspiration of a man's deluded feel- 
ings, ignorant or cowardly or perverse or indolent 
or perhaps compounded of all these, leading him 
religiously to have his own way at all events. Hear 
the word of God : " For, for this cause pay ye tri- 
bute also : for they are God's ministers, attending 
continually upon this very thing. Render there- 
fore to all their dues : tribute to whom tribute 

IS DUE ; CUSTOM TO WHOM CUSTOM ; FEAR TO WHOM 

fear; honor to w t hom hono^." It was the mili- 
tary government of the CiESARS to which was 
the direct reference of the apostle at the time. But 
Friends say, we cannot pay militia fines ; nor do 
any thing to uphold the military power. Ah ! 
truly : — and why do you ever become adjuncts and 



245 

allies and officers of such a civic dynasty 1 or vote 
for the ministers of such a power 1 What are you 
doing at the polls, but upholding that very power 1 
What moral right have you there 1 to vote or be vo- 
ted for 1 And yet all of you (generally 41 ) exercise the 
right of suffrage. And you virtually appeal to the 
sword, whenever you sue a man, and invoke the 
armed interference of the law to coerce him to his 
duty! Have I no right here to suggest that casuis- 
try is sometimes marvellously convinced, not by 
evidence but by influence ; not by the Bible, but 
the — purse ! If the government charged a pecu- 
niary bonus or capitation tax for the privilege of 
voting, I presume there would be heard some new 
conscientious groaning against the military power — 
even by Friends ! But it gives them influence in a 
cheap way; and hence they forget the dreadful 
horror they sometimes feel in doing any thing to 
uphold a military government. Without such a 
government, there is not a right, nor a possession, 
nor an endearment, they could call their own, one 
single day or night ! And yet — others must do the 
fighting or pay for the war : they only enjoy the 
privileges ; which blood and treasure other than 
their own, procured for them and still preserves. 
In the defence of the commonwealth, they refuse 
all responsibility : and just so — by proxy — do they 
support and diffuse Christianity in the world ! trans- 
late the scriptures, defend them, and so forth ! 
The Father of his Country, in answer to an ad- 
dress of the society, congratulating him in their 
way on his accession to the presidency of the Union, 



246 

gives a marked and just reproof of their unequal 
principles, "receiving benefits and rendering none," 
to the power of the State. His words are very 
kind, dignified, and worthy of himself; commend- 
ing their principles in reference to order and peace, 
" except their declining to share with others the bur- 
thens of the common defence" He also very exem- 
plarily assures them that " it is his wish and desire 
that the laws may always be as extensively accom- 
modated to the conscientious scruples of all men, 
as a due regard to the protection and essential in- 
terests of the nation may justify and permit." Thus 
nobly wrote Washington in 1789. He had wit- 
nessed during the revolution some of their twisticai 
proceedings ; and taken several of their luminaries 
into his own custody, lest their " scruples " might 
incline rather too far toward royalty and England. 
In the last war (1812) some became sudden con- 
verts to Quakerism ; growing quite conscientious 
in the time of danger against such profane expo- 
sures of life — and either joined the Society, or 
pleaded a kindred exemption from military respon- 
sibilities. In the revolution, a number of courage- 
ous and patriotic men of the society, took the field ; 
who were called, on their return, " Free Quakers," 
being disowned by Friends. What a pity that their 
own good sense on some other subjects, can not be 
brought on this to act with equal light and love of 
evidence ! " Render therefore unto Caesar, the things 
which are Caesar's ; and unto God, the things that 
are God's." Mat. 22 : 21. fcr»l Pet. 2 : 13-17. We 
suppose it taught also (7) That the principles of 



247 

the magistracy, as divinely sanctioned, are to be 
held virtually to extend to all communities less than 
that of the State ; as a school, a family, a ship's 
crew, a caravan, an army, or a company socially 
organized in any way. The means must be ade- 
quate to the ends of government. There must be 
order, law, authority, headship, concentration ; and 
equally there must be subordination, self-denial, 
harmony, and obedience. There ought also to be, 
as always there might, mutual benevolence and 
wisdom. Hence the father or head of a family is 
a domestic magistrate. He is legislature, judiciary, 
and police. He presides over the commonwealth 
of home. He must be able sometimes to coerce 
obedience ; sometimes to repel invasion ; sometimes 
to protect his charge by an appeal to the ultima 
ratio* 2 — when there is no time to wait for the re- 
gum 42 of ordinary safety or the legum u of adequate 
redress. Nor is there any need ©f anger or malice 
in the administration ; so that where such passions 
find sway, it is the man himself, and not the system 
or sphere of his duties, that is culpable. Malice 
is incidental, adventitious, corruptive ; and of con- 
sequence infers nothing against the established 
equity and wisdom of the divine constitution. 

Hence (8) that abuses in the administration of 
civil or political government do not affect the prin- 
ciple for which we contend. Those abuses, as 
such, the worse for what they impiously mar, may 
be wisely shown, justly resisted, and equitably re- 
dressed. In such a world as this, all history pro- 
claims their horrible abundance. But on the pas- 



248 

site endurance scheme, passive endurance is all ! 
When would this principle have achieved the liber- 
ties of America? The system of magistracy re- 
acts on its incumbents. It tells them to be "just, 
ruling in the fear of God :" or, his providence may 
let loose upon them a revolutionary tornado that 
shall hurl them from their seats, or conduct a regu- 
lar impeachment which shall instate their succes- 
sors. Such a lex talionis or in terrorem influence, 
exists in this country in the civic majesty of the 
ballot-boxes. Thus society is tempered, balanced, 
and founded, in obvious principles of reciprocal de- 
pendence and responsibility ; and the fierce pas- 
sions of the worst, for whom especially the crimi- 
nal code is enacted, 1 Tim. 1:8, 9, are held in 
check serene ; like the rumbling central fires of an 
unbroached volcano, with the turbulence of its im- 
prisoned lava surging, beneath the adamantine 
crust on which a city stands stately and secure ! 

9. The texts which Friends quote so confidently 
in favor of their views, show only in their hands 
what an interpreter the inward light is ! {£?* Matt. 
5 : 38-48. Must these orders be all literalized ; or, 
interpreted in their spirit according to the analogy 
of faith 1 In the latter way, they appear in beau- 
tiful symmetry and keeping ; as absolutely forbid- 
ding all malevolence, anger, revenge, and every 
modification of these diabolical passions ! But do 
they forbid Paul to stand on his rights as a Roman 
citizen, at Philippi 1 Acts, 16 : 35-39. 22 : 25-30, 
or to use legal measures, backed with a military 
cohort, for his redress 1 23-28. Besides, Friends 



249 

require us to iiteralize those orders ; and yet they 
practically do it not themselves ! Let us see. " And 
if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away 
thy coat, let him have thy cloak also V 9 Is this the 
way of Friends, Orthodox or Hicksites 1 Witness 
their mutual litigations for " the uttermost farthing " 
in dispute between them ! Witness their prac- 
tice when one of " the world's people " would 
wrong them out of their own, or "take away 
their coat 1" The style of the passage is plainly 
proverbial and figurative ; and it is for those only 
to be privileged to Iiteralize its meaning, whose 
practice discredits the interpretation they maintain, 
and whose ordinary spiritualizing of passages 
plainly literal has become itself a proverb ! But 
" How can thee love a man and yet strike or slay 
him with thy hand V H5 Answer — As well as Samuel 
could " hew Agag in pieces before the Lord in 
Gilgal !" How can Friends think it not murder, to 
carry passive endurance to its extravagance in any 
case "outwardly," while probably real malice lives 
and practises within them? Matt. 23 : 24-28. e= £Q 
Mark, 7: 14-23. There must be a deeper and 
more thorough cleansing of their characters than 
the hue of Quakerism can impart, in order to their 
knowing or showing true wisdom ! Their reli- 
gion, just here, is so external alone, so formal and 
ceremonial, so hollow and heartless, that appear- 
ances, not realities, carry it in the favorable estima- 
tion of the populace. What I allege is — that their 
views are puerile, impracticable, false ; and that 
Christianity is not responsible for them. And if 

32 



250 

those views ever allow them (as I have reason to 
think the remark not uncalled for) to enter the tem- 
ple and the jury-box of their country's justice, when 
a manslayer is to be tried for his life, and refuse to 
convict him — because their views condemn all capi- 
tal punishment ; and so influence or fatigue their 
juror peers into a verdict of acquittal ; and this al- 
though the evidence may be conclusive and they 
(virtually) sworn to render accordingly : I feel it to 
be my duty to write it {£?* as no better than a clear 
example of anti-christianity/fraud, perjury, and co- 
vert treason against the commonwealth ! Deut. 
25: 1. A christian could weep with tenderness, 
glow with benevolence, and hesitate with interjec- 
ted prayer for his salvation ; and yet inflexibly — 
utter the verdict of truth and righteousness ! Such 
is the conduct of principle. 

10. Friends often adduce Matt. 26 : 52, (see 
also Rev. 15 : 10; and 16 : 6,) where the Savior 
said to Peter, "Put up again thy sword into its 
place ; for all they that take the sword shall perish 
with the sword." Their views here are very ob- 
jectionable: 1. As they interpret it, it proves that 
no good man or christian can use the sword at all. 
It thus disposes of Washington, Colonel Gardiner, 
Cornelius the centurion of the Italian band, old 
Samuel, and millions of others not to be numbered. 
But 2. Does it say any such thing 1 — " shall perish 
with the sword;" he shall die by a violence like that 
which he exerts. Is this necessarily — perdition 
everlasting 1 Such navigators ought to look ahead 
a little, and they could see the rock against which 



25 L 

they are dashing themselves. A Friend once 
argued with me as follows : " It can't mean tem- 
poral punishment, for they very often escape. It 
must mean therefore that which is eternal ; for the 
words are express — < shall perish ;' that is, ' with the 
sword' hereafter." This is a summary way of 
settling the matter, truly. But we may well pause 
before we sanction such enormous error. For 
3. It proves too much quite — it nullifies the thir- 
teenth of Romans ; where the clear explains or at 
least coerces the doubtful. Many a man " beareth 
the sword " by the authority of God, as his civic 
" minister." Inference — their inspiration is at fault 
again : it dogmatizes what is false, as it is wont to 
do. 4. A credible interpretation does more honor 
to the passage : Peter was ardent to fight for the 
kingdom of his master, and thus to carry the for- 
tunes and the cause of Messiah. But this was not 
the way to propagate his religion. He that resorted 
to such means would fail of the end and destroy 
himself. That spiritual tyrant who affects to sit in 
Peter's chair (in which Peter himself never sat) 
and resembles him only in his errors, unites in his 
own regime the power of the sword with that of 
the keys — and how much of the religion of Christ 
does he propagate 1 Generally, the passage is an 
interdict against all such military measures and 
sanguinary means of grace : while it had a special 
applicability to the duty of that unparalleled crisis, 
to suffer rather than resist. If resistance had been 
wise, he would have employed it. " Twelve legions 
of angels " had " presently " appeared for his res- 



252 

cue, asking no human sword to add its imbecility 
to their arms. " But how then shall the scriptures 
be fulfilled that thus it must be 1" 54. John, 1 8 : 36. 
Friends are often asked, what would be your 
course of duty as the head of a family, if a despe- 
rado in quest of " beauty and booty " were to break 
into your house at midnight 1 They answer, (1) 
This is an extreme case, and it is not fair to try 
principles in that way. I reply, why 1 because a 
principle is not to be judged by looking at its na- 
tive tendency, its proper fruits, its practical relation 
and utility 1 Must we then go to the sky of Utopia 
for all our ethical light 1 But it is not an extreme 
case : far from it ! It occurs virtually every day in 
the year ; our newspapers groan with the records 
of violence, and society is bleeding in every mem- 
ber. Take a fact — A lady at the South was once 
left, in the absence of her husband, alone in the 
house, or with no other protection than sleeping 
infancy in her chamber, and a few slaves in other 
apartments. Just as she was about to retire, she 
was alarmed by the sudden appearance of an ath- 
letic negro of the neighborhood, who plainly an- 
nounced a purpose more terrible than death to the 
thoughts of conjugal virtue. What should she dot 
With calm self-possession she concealed the agita- 
tion of her feelings — requested him to wash his 
feet in water that she would procure for him — and 
watching her moment while he was so engaged, 
having seized an axe that she had prudently con- 
cealed, she despatched him with one well directed 
blow on his head ! Suppose her husband had been 



253 

a Friend — could he have blamed her at his return 1 
Would any jury of men or women condemn her 1 
She deserves to rank with Judith who decapitated 
Holofernes, and " Jael the wife of Heber the Ken- 
ite " who " shall be blessed " for the nail she drove 
through the temples of Sisera! Judges, 4 : 5. 
Hence when Friends say, (2) that if we are faith- 
ful we shall never be brought into such extremities, 
they utter what is foolishness itself. Was not 
Isaiah faithful, whom Manasseh " sawed asunder V 
or Paul who was beheaded under Nero 1 Let the 
blood of the martyrs answer. 

That war is ordinarily iniquitous and wrong on 
both sides, and that terrible abuses of the power 
of the sword have always prevailed in our world, 
though with special criminality in an age so 
favored with the means of knowledge and right- 
eousness as this, must be at once admitted and 
maintained. Wars of conquest, ambition, martial 
glory, or posthumous fame, are utterly unauthorized 
and wrong ; are " earthly, sensual, devilish ;" are 
worthy of the combined abhorrence of earth and 
heaven. If our peace societies would all be defi- 
nite and sound in principle, aiming at things pro- 
per and practicable, and at these alone, I, for one, 
have no doubt not only of their high utility, but of 
their rapid prosperity and ultimate success. Let 
them honor the principles of magistracy as laid 
down in the New Testament ; maintain the recti- 
tude of war when strictly defensive, when abso- 
lutely necessary in the last resort, when so prose- 
cuted that the guidance of the Lord of hosts 



254 

can be devoutly invoked on its movements ; let 
them make no canopy or cover for law-hating in- 
fidels and universalists ; let them recognise and 
honor the doctrine of penalty and the armed puis- 
sance of the state ; let them show rights and duties 
reciprocally and wisely ; let none of them misrepre- 
sent the religion of Jesus Christ, as if it contained 
" the old wives' fable " of passive exduraxce, or 
as if a man could not have prowess or " show him- 
self a man " or act valiantly pro arts et focis tt 
without malevolence : let them so act and so pro- 
ceed, and they will take hold of the public mind ; 
they will arrest the attention of cabinets and states- 
men ; they will disarm a mighty prejudice and 
attach devoted millions to their cause ; heaven will 
bless their labors of philanthropy ; the nations of 
the earth may hear their voice, feel their arguments, 
and echo their wishes, in the universal pacification 
of the globe and through the " blessed and holy " 
ages of the mille^moi. 

1 1 . While I fully believe all that I have written on 
this momentous subject, I feel bound to add — that 
it is no part of the argument or the motive to autho- 
rize wars, feuds, and bloody rencounters, such as 
actually occur in almost every page of universal 
history ! There is no need of war comparatively, 
on the earth ; either individually or generally. The 
real necessity for war is very different from the as- 
sumed necessity. There is no need of it abso- 
lutely — except what wicked passions mainly foment 
and make. For abuses of principle or practice, I 
am no apologist. Diplomacy, equitable, calm, 



255 



PACIFIC, OUGHT TO SETTLE ALL INTERNATIONAL DIF- 
FERENCES : justly dreading an appeal to the sword, 
as a most terrible calamity. To exemplify this wis- 
dom, is transcendently the duty_especially of chris- 
tian nations. My very soul deprecates war ! It is 
indeed a mighty and a monstrous evil — " a game, 
which, were their subjects wise, kings would not 
play at." Ruin to finances is nothing compared 
with ruin to morals. It depraves a nation ! Pri- 
vate differences too might easily be settled in eveiy 
case, but for bad passions! And for all these 
maladies, can nothing be done ? There is apa- 
nacea, which I would here record as infallible : 
it is a compound in due proportions of James 4 : 
1-17. Matt. 18: 15-18, and 2 Cor. 5 : 10-21. 
Whence, I observe, 

12. The pacification of society and the regenera- 
tion of the world, is to be realized ONLY through 

THE PREVALENCE OF CHRISTIANITY ; ONLY BY THE 
ASCENDENCY OF CHRISTIAN SENTIMENT AMONG 

the nations ! I believe that such a period will 
arrive : for it is certainly and credibly predicted : 
but I believe as much in the only appointed means, 
as I do in the desired end of the glorious consum- 
mation ! It will occur not by rendering magistracy 
weaponless and imbecile ; but by superseding its 
occasions of using the sword. There is no inward 
light of any sort in man, that will correct his er- 
rors or convert his soul or* reform his millions on 
the earth. The grace of the gospel alone can work 
his melioration. It is only by the diffusion of "the 
glorious gospel of the blessed God," and its ere- 



256 



dence in the world, that such a period ever will 
arrive ! The means are revealed, just as much as 
the end, in the scriptures of truth : and the oppo- 
sers of missions to the heathen, of the operations 
of Bible societies, Sabbath-schools, and other evan- 
gelical instrumentalities of communicative good- 
ness, however they may say or think themselves 
desirous of the result, are really its most formidable 
and guilty retarders. Meanwhile, the magistracy 
is not to be disarmed or divested of the thunders of 
God. Quakerism has had a trial of its plenipoten- 
tiary light, for nearly two centuries. What state 
has adopted it ; or what promise does it unfold of 
its own ultimate prevalence, or of its ever pacifying 
the nations 1 It is an obscuration of the light of 
Christianity and a delusion that supersedes its influ- 
ence. Is. 2 : 2-5. Matt. 28 : 18-20. Rom. 16 : 
25-27. Dan. 7: 26, 27. 12: 9-13. Rev. 20 : 1-6. 
These passages show the reality of the millen- 
nium and the theory of its eventuation. Inward 
light can only retard and prevent it. "For out of 
zlon shall go forth the law, and the word of 
the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge 
among the nations, and shall rebuke many peo- 
ple : and they shall beat their swords into 
plough-shares, and their spears into pruning- 
hooks : nation shall not lift up sword against 
nation, neither shall they learn war any 
more. o house of jacob, come ye, and let us 
walk in the light of the lord !" 

My fathers and brethren ; in what follows of this 
work, I shall address you really, but with still less 



257 

directness and form. The volume, as it is now to 
go forth, is, I hope, destined in providence to do 
some good. Again, I say, with the matter I am 
comparatively contented. The manner is much 
more vulnerable. It has indeed very little of my 
own confidence. I entreat you, however, to reflect 
on the exceeding difficulty of doing such a service 
in a style felicitous and acceptable : especially for 
one so situated ; so interrupted and hurried with 
other duties. 47 You will defend the cause of truth, 
and the fortunes of my humble book, only as 
they appear to you congenial or identified. I can 
ask no more — unless it be your prayers for me and 
"my kinsmen according to the flesh!" The junior 
prophet exclaimed, while the patriarch sage ascend- 
ed ; " My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, 
and the horsemen thereof!" It was well and elo- 
quently said. The genuine prophetic service, the 
christian ministry more eminently, the pious and 
the learned fathers of the church, are the defence 
of the country ; the munition of the nation ; the 
treasure of the state : nor will I wait the time to 
catch your falling mantle, or lament your departure, 
if permitted to survive, before I express my grate- 
ful conviction of the truth. The ministers of the 
gospel — that deserve the name — are " the messen- 
gers of the churches and the glory of Christ." 
Jesus Christ holds them as "stars" in his own 
right hand. He defends them too ; "saying, Touch 
not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm." 
The history of this country demonstrates the same 

33 



258 

truth in every chapter : and so long as Christianity, 
pure and free, shall continue to throw over us the 
mantle of celestial influence, we shall endure and 
flourish, the hope and the wonder of the world. 
This is the only inspiration we need. The institu- 
tions of our civil freedom are comparatively conge- 
nial with the principles of the gospel. " In com- 
parison with the rest of the world," says Baxter, 
"I shall think that land happy which hath but bare 
liberty to be as good as the people are willing to 
be." How much more liberty do we enjoy or — per- 
vert ! Here we may think and act and worship 
without fear. There is no temptation — I had al- 
most said — not to be honest. It is the vantage- 
ground of evidence : and we are all willing to make 
this league even with infidelity and heresy — that 
we will on all sides freely examine, so that evidence 
only may lead us : and that system shall alone 
prevail that can stand the shock of all rational dis- 
cussion. Christianity, I venture nothing in saying 
it, is such a system ; and just as evident is it that 
there is no other : consequently, Quakerism is not 
that system ; and therefore oxly do I benevo- 
lently desire to see it universally superseded. 
" Prove all things : hold fast that which is good. r? 
It is strange that any one should so err respecting 
the nature of benevolence, as to question either its 
vital connexion with truth, or its fearless delight 
in evidence, or the vigor and the principle of all its 
proper demonstrations ; since the predominance of 
selfishness alone can adequately account for the 
apathy or the antipathy of millions toward the gos- 



259 



pel. "And this is the condemnation!" "For 
it had been better for them not to have known the 
way of righteousness, than, after they have known 
it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered 
unto them." 



TA&T 3ECON9 



THE GRAND ERMOR. 



Sint castae deliciae meae, scripturae tuae ; nee fallar in eis, nee fallam 
ex eis. Augustine, 

O be thy written Word my chaste delight ; 
Guiding my earthly pilgrimage aright ! 
In it I know my soul is not deceived; 
From it I speak the truth to be believed. 

It was needful forme to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should 

EARNESTLY CONTEND FOR THE FAITH WHICH WAS ONCE DELIVERED 
UNTO THE SAINTS. Jude, 3. 

For there must also be heresies among you, that they who are approved 
may be made manifest among you. 1 Cor. 11 : 19. 

Then shall ye return and discern between the righteous and the wicked; 
between him that serveth God, and him that serveth him not. Mai. 3 : 18. 

The prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail. For the leaders of this people 
cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed. Isa. 9: 16, 16. 

The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream ; and he that hath my 
word, let him speak my word faithfully. VI hat is the chaff to the wheat? 
saith the Lord. Jer. 23 : 28. 

For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, 
and idolaters, and WHOSOEVER LOVETH AND MAKETH A LIE. 
Revelation^, 22 : 15. 

I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran : I have not spoken to them, 
yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in my counsel, and had 

CAUSED MY PEOPLE TO HEAR MY WORDS, THEN THEY SHOULD HAVE TURNED 
THEM FROM THEIR EVIL WAY, AND FROM THE EVIL OF THEIR DOINGS. Jer. 

23: 21, 22. 

But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other Gospel unto 
you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed! As 
we said before, so say I now again, if any [man or angel] preach any other 
Gospel unto yon than ye have received, let him be accursed. Gal. 1 : 8, 9. 



PART SECOND, 



THE GRAND ERROR. 



For the sake of argument and for the sake of be- 
nevolence we ought, as in all controversies, so emi- 
nently in this, to ascertain the grand points in re- 
spect to which the parties are agreed. To state all 
these might not be useful ; but some there are upon 
which, I suppose, our coincidence will be admitted 
by all. These shall be carefully recorded in the 
outset ; and by the writer assumed as principles of 
reasoning in the subsequent pages. As Barclay 
can be shown to sanction several of them, Friends 
will probably assent to as many of these principles. 

1. The scriptures of the Old and New Testa- 
ments, as generally received by the protestant 
world, contain, in their proper and native meaning, 
the truth, and in respect to that meaning are evi- 
dently THE TRUTH. 

2. These scriptures were given by inspiration of 
the Holy Ghost for the benefit of mankind. 

3. Truth is a unit; that is, it is always consistent 



264 

with itself; as " no lie is of the truth :*' and hence 
revelation is one system, of different but related 
parts in divine harmony. 

4. It is impossible that the same Holy Spirit, that 
equally inspired Moses and the beloved John and 
all the intervening prophets and apostles, should 
ever contradict himself or reveal things contrary to 
his own revelation on any other theme or occasion : 
we hold this, distinguishing between verbal and 
virtual contradictious; as. for example, man is mor- 
tal — man is immortal : God can do all things — God 
cannot lie. 

5. Whatever is proved to be contrary to scripture, 
is necessarily false : and consequently, whatever is 
proved to coincide with scripture is necessarily true. 

6. Whatever duty is, according to scripture, bind- 
ing on the present worshippers of God, is binding 
by divine authority and cannot be habitually omitted 
or violated without sin : though duties and sins 
differ inimitably in form and degree. 

7. Almost every rule has its exceptions ; which 
however do not impair (they rather confirm) the 
rule : as, this proposition — it is appointed unto men 
once to die may be styled the rule of our faith in re- 
spect to the mortality of the species ; but Enoch and 
Elijah never did and never will die, though they are 
of the species and were once alive on the earth ; 
they become exceptions to the rule, by which how- 
ever the rule is confirmed rather than impaired. 

8. It is monstrous and mischievous to invert the 
foregoing principle ; that is, to make a rule of an 
exception, or to mistake the exception for the rale : 



265 

thus, for example ; Enoch and Elijah were men, 
and they never died and never will die ; therefore I 
and all other men will never die — we shall either 
be translated or exist in this world for ever ! 

Take another illustration. Iscariot was an apos- 
tle of Jesus Christ ; he was also " a devil," a sordid 
traitor, one of the worst of men and "the son of 
perdition :" therefore the apostles of Jesus Christ 
were — but I forbear ! Iscariot was the exception 
and the only one, to the rule that the apostles of 
Jesus Christ were in holiness resembling the angels 
of God, in fidelity incorruptible, in goodness super- 
lative, and in salvation for ever glorious. There 
are, however, some subordinate exceptions, of 
constancy rather than of character, in the history 
of the holy apostles, that do not disprove their 
exalted excellence in general, while they reveal 
notwithstanding their imperfection in particular 
instances. 

9. The best thing may be abused, and abused to 
a dreadful and intolerable degree. Still, the thing 
itself remains the same ; and to disparage it, on 
account of its abuse by men, or to make it respon- 
sible for that abuse, or to infer the obligation of its 
disuse from such premises, instead of judging of the 
same by a correct standard according to its proper 
nature, is illegitimate in reasoning, and would in 
its consequences empower the wicked to destroy 
(by merely abusing) universal goodness ; while, at 
the same time, it would enervate the strength, de- 
grade the cause, and ruin the friends, of all righte- 
ousness ; since the abuse of any thing may be ad- 

34 



266 

nutted by a christian, and also abhorred and de- 
plored by him, without destroying the moral rela- 
tion between that thing and him ; and since also 
the very idea of its abuse presupposes its intrinsic 
goodness and affirms the wickedness of its abusers 
alone. For example : the ministry of the gospel is 
a divine institution, and one of incalculable excel- 
lence and usefulness ; but none perhaps beside it 
(unless that of marriage) has been so sacrilegiously 
and horribly abused in every way : is the institution 
therefore bad, as bad, and as worthy to be execra- 
ted and scouted by the whole community as are 
its abuses and abusers \ 

10. He cannot be wrong who goes really accord- 
ing to the scripture. 

11. The Bible is a good book. 

12. It is possible that a knowledge and love of the 
contents of the Bible may induce a man to defend 
it with vehemence, and even to oppose men with 
decision for its sake ; while his feelings toward their 
personal interests, whom he judges to be adverse to 
that book of God, are not the less benevolent, but 
the more so, because of his supreme regard for 
truth, and for God, its Author and avenger. 

13. Purity is properly before peace, and properly 
before unity ; while purity, unity, peace, — -just in 
that order of precedency, — are all desirable. 

14. Communion of feeling is founded on com- 
munion of sentiment ; so that doctrinal coincidence 
always induces (or tends to induce) union of affec- 
tion ; doctrinal contrariety or divergency equally 
inspires alienation; and no combination of senti- 



2G7 

ment, soul, or action, is comparatively desirable, 
except that which results from "the truth as it is 
in Jesus." 

To the last two of these statements, I doubt in- 
deed if Friends will agree, /however believe them. 
Instead of others, let us mind a standard passage 
in James, 3 : 17. "But the wisdom that is from 
above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to 
be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without 
partiality, and without hypocrisy." Mark! — the ce- 
lestial wisdom is first pure — then peaceable ! If 
I mistake not, this is the very reverse of the wisdom 
of mankind. They wish us to be first "peaceable, 
gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good 
fruits," and other benignities, and then — after all 
these harmless qualities — then — if ever — "pure!" 
But purity must precede, or — the wisdom "de- 
scendeth not from above ; but is earthly, sensual, 
devilish." Here is the point of divergency ! The 
great question is, shall purity or peace precede ? 
If peace had always been preferred in the church, 
such a thing as persecution for righteousness* sake 
had not been known. I would however wish always 
to retain the spirit of moderation and benevolence, 
even when engaged in controversy respecting fun- 
damentals. To use the excellent words of an 
esteemed cotemporary ; (Dr. Fitch, of Yale Col- 
lege ;) " the heat does not enable us to see, it is the 
light only. Truth is learned only at the pure foun- 
tains of evidence. Authority does not create it; 
dogmatism recommends it not; neither does vio- 
lence impose it : from such task-masters conscience 



263 

retreats that she may hear, in the still silence of 
her musings, the voice of God." 

15. It is proper to use the scripture in all religious 
investigation, since it was given to this very end, 
that the man of God might be accomplished for 
every good work ; according to that signal testi- 
mony of the apostle, which I thus alter in the trans- 
lation, to make it more orderly and like the original ; 
" All scripture is given by inspiration of God ; and 
is profitable for instruction, for conviction, for cor- 
rection, for education in righteousness ; so that the 
man of God might be accomplished, consummately 
furnished for every good work." 2 Tim. 3 : 16, 17.«^ 
The last six verses of the chapter ought to be 
read in their connection and thoroughly digested 
in their common scope, especially by Friends. 

Having thus stated several principles of reason- 
ing, by which to be governed in this work, I will 
now state some positions of truth, or things that 
I believe and shall endeavour to prove as we pro- 
ceed. As in the former I have stated what I sup- 
pose will be mainly admitted on both sides, so in 
the latter will appear what I indeed believe with 
very high conviction ; but what (or the most of 
which) Friends characteristically, (if not univer- 
sally,) disbelieve with very great decision. 

1. The scriptures are the paramount rule of 
faith and practice ; they were so given and design- 
ed by their divine Author ; and are never duly ho- 
nored when they are equalized or subordinated, to 
reason, conscience, feelings, private spirits, dreams, 



269 

revelations, impressions, visions, or influences of 
any other description. 

2. The scriptures are given by that kind of di- 
vide inspiration (I forbear all technical names) 
which procures the result of written truth, without 
any mixture of error, in the original Hebrew and 
Greek : of which our translation is in the main a 
very excellent representation. 

3. The scriptures have been providentially pre- 
served from all substantial corruptions of the text, 
so that they answer the original design of their au- 
thor in remaining a volume (or rather many vo- 
lumes) of divine inspiration, virtually and wonder- 
fully pure. Psalm 12 : 6, 7. 

4. Divine illumination or spiritual discernment 
characterizes the saints in all ages, and is vital to 
the existence of religion ; that influence, however, 
of the Spirit of God, which produces and matures 
it, is specifically different (in nature and result) 
from that of proper inspiration. 

5. In true religion, which is substantially the 
same in all ages, the truth of scripture, affecting the 
mind in the forms of preaching, reading, admonish- 
ing, meditating, or some other and yet kindred 
form, is the grand instrument of the Holy Ghost 
in all his saving operations. 

6. All the moral excellence of man is the super- 
natural production of the Spirit of God, and is pro- 
perly resolvable into "the fruit of the Spirit:" 
which is not indigenous to the soil, or the sponta- 
neous growth of nature, or one of the fruits of the 



870 

and this is mainly what I mean by the epi- 
thet not miraculous, but supernatural. 

7. Inspiration is a gift and not a grace, a gin 
that may more :: anefif ofheia than its subject; and 
so is not necessary at ail to be personally experi- 
enced in order to salvation ; since otherwise, all 
that were not divinely inspired, as the apostles 

re. are infallibly lost ; since wicked men. as 
Baalam. Caiphas. and many others, were divinely 
inspired, but never as we must thinks regenerated : 
and since the inspiration of the writers ol scripture, 
though they were ■'•' holy men of God." in no part 
constitute wever it might have occasionally and 

even eminently assisted, their personal religion. 

8. We have no evidence that, since i or near; the 
apostolic age, there has been one proper miracle 
wrought, or one human being divinely inspired, or 
that there exists any more the necessity than the 
reality in our age of such wonderful endowments. 

9. To pretend or affect inspiration, without pos- 
sessing it. or being able to give any proof, either 
miraculous or rational, of its reality, is either capital 

:^"~ M irible delusion, or probably both. It 
is incalculable misery and guilt ! 

10. No man evades or habitually disparages the 
authority of scripture, who is not to be suspected. 
as secretly tinscious or timorous that the scripture 
itself is his moral enemy. 

11. To disparage or corrupt the influence of 
scripture upon the minds of men. is enormous sin : 
a sin especially against ike first three and indeed 
all the c ■ "he decalogue : a sin that 



271 

awfully jeopards the souls of those who are engaged 
in it, teaching or taught. 

12. A man who is afraid of investigation, in res- 
pect to the principles of his faith, is most probably 
destitute of the Spirit of Christ. 

13. A man who knows the truth and loves it, 
does, in every instance, desire its universal recog- 
nition and diffusion. 

14. The knowledge and love of " the truth as it 
is in Jesus " is a proper definition of vital religion. 
" True religion," says President Edwards, " in a 
great measure consists in holy affections. A love 
of divine things, for the beauty and sweetness of 
their moral excellency, is the spring of all holy af- 
fections." Such love of things invisible, howe- 
ver, presupposes knowledge and discrimination ; of 
which revealed truth is the only medium, and faith 
in it the indispensable way. 

15. A man w r hose personal religion cannot stand 
the test of scripture, is much more evidently unable 
to endure the ordeal of eternal judgment — to which 
he goes. 

16. It is the highest interest, the present and ul- 
timate happiness, of a man to come to the know- 
ledge and acknowledgment of the truth, the whole 
truth, and nothing but the truth : and it is duty 
too! 

17. To be prejudiced against evidence, is sin ; 
and the strength of prejudice, however strong it 
may be, is sinful in proportion to its strength ; and 
perilous to the soul in proportion to its sinfulness. 

18. To oppose prejudice with truth, with scrip- 



272 

ture, with argument ; to oppose whatever is adverse 
to these by the same means, is the office of genuine 
philanthropy and the signal of divine benevolence. 

19. To believe a proposition only because others 
believe it ; or because I was educated to believe it ; 
or because it suits me ; or because it seems to me 
honorable to the divine character; contains in it 
not a particle of religious virtue ; and is a course 
that has led thousands of souls fatally far from 
God, but has probably never brought one to him. 

20. Truth is no pensioner on human opinion, 
but is as really independent of what we think, as 
it is of what we wish or of what we are ; while it is 
identified with •• every word that proceedeth out of 
the mouth of God." Truth is greater than any of 
us — considerably. 

21. No man can ever savingly possess the truth. 
who does not appreciate it ; and whose appreciation 
is not practical and commmanding. leading him to 
use the necessary means, and to make the neces- 
sary sacrifices, and to show the necessary decision., 
for its attainment. What self-denial could be more 
promising or profitable \ 

22. The office of human reason in religion 
is in subserviency to scriptcral revelation ; 
and is properly three-fold ; this — not to anticipate 
its sovereign disclosures, or to imply its superfluity, 
or to invent its proper contents, or to dictate to it 
in any way ; but — (1) to examine the evidence 
which is said to sustain its pretensions, as a com- 
munication from God ; ;2) to ascertain the meaning 
of its contents, under the gracious assistance which 



273 

it proposes to the ingenuous inquirer — which is the 
noble art and science and service of interpretation ; 

(3) WISELY TO APPLY TO ALL PRACTICAL USES OF THE 
CHRISTIAN LIFE THE KNOWLEDGE SO ACQUIRED. 

23. It is the duty of all men to "come to the 
knowledge of the truth ;" and to this end to exer- 
cise the reasoning faculty honestly and in the fear 
of God — and love him "with all thy mind!" 2 Tim. 
1 : 7. 

24. The sin of reasoning in religion is not at all 
intrinsic to the exercise ; since Christ reasoned, as 
also did all the apostles ; but it consists in reason- 
ing to serve some evil purpose, of pride, passion, 
party, or perverseness ; and " meekness of wis- 
dom " does not imply tameness or insipidity of ar- 
gument ; but only integrity of motive, candor, and 
love of the truth. James, 3 : 13. 

25. Personalities in controversy are always im- 
proper, if not malignant ; they can scarcely proceed 
from a good motive or to a good end ; but, to im- 
plicate persons as the mere result of principles, 
however severe the implication, or however tre- 
mendous the consequence, is at once legitimate 
and unavoidable. 

26. Whether a Friend is ever a christian, so as 
to be saved ; whether this is possible, probable, or 
common, or the reverse ; if savingly pious, how 
many and who are such, and in what proportion 
these to the comparative chaff of the society ; these 
questions, and all such as these, belong, I think, to 
the solemn arbitration of God ; they are questions 
which I wish not at all to decide ; and though 

35 



274 

Friends must necessarily be affected by the princi- 
ples discussed, in common with all other people, or 
with special emphasis and application, yet I can 
truly say, before the Searcher of hearts, that " my 
heart's desire and prayer to God for them is, that 
they might be saved," and that I desire benefit and 
not blighting to their souls as the result of this 
publication. 

27. Irony, when founded in truth and directed 
to its vindication, is sometimes a lawful and perhaps 
a necessary weapon of religious controversy. Sa- 
tire is in the same predicament. Neither however 
should be used with frequency or freedom. There 
are certain usages of sanctimonious absurdity, to 
which mankind become addicted as custom and 
tradition prescribe ; which, having no foundation in 
truth, though most tenaciously practised as divine 
ordinances, can be successfully assailed, it may be, 
only by some of those modes of reasoning which 
make their folly manifest and glaring to every be- 
holder. 

28. Truth is the doctrine of facts or realities or 
things. As these are the great archetypes of truth 
in religion ; as they exist separately from the testi- 
mony that describes them ; so it is not even the 
testimony of God that makes them as they are. 
His testimony is the highest rational evidence of 
their existence ; but still they exist independent of 
that testimony. Heaven, and hell, and the resur- 
rection of the dead, are realities, whether known or 
unknown, whether believed or disbelieved, whether 
revealed or nnrevealed. The testimony of God 



275 

concerning them, affects us, not them ; makes them 
no more real or important intrinsically, but conv 
municates the certain information respecting them 
which we infinitely need to possess. Thus also the 
things of Quakerism are true or false intrinsically : 
if true, it will not be in the power of investigation 
to injure them ; if false, what harm is done by the 
investigation that discloses it 1 Do we make them 
false, by showing that they are so 1 Are we to 
blame for their falsity, or for showing it 1 Is it a 
privilege to be fundamentally wrong] Is it the 
interest of a man not to know things as they are 1 
Is error good for him 1 Is it misanthropy to as- 
sist in the hopeful substitution of truth ? Must 
Quakerism be kept and cherished and defended at 
all events l living, dying, and hereafter 1 " The 
day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by 
lire ; and the fire shall try every man's work, of 
what sort it is :" 1 Cor. 3 : an agent sufficiently 
penetrating and impartial, truly. Nothing that is 
not incombustibly durable, can survive that or- 
deal of fire ; even if a true christian minister has 
reared it, and reared it too upon the right and only 
foundation. Nothing but "gold, silver, precious 
stones," can last and emerge unscathed. What then 
shall be the result with " wood, hay, stubble ;" 
especially if it be very questionably or not at all 
connected with the immovable foundation 1 Let 
no man tempt the possibilities of eternal judg- 
ment ! or, let hell be confounded, as well as out- 
done, by the desperation of traitors on the earth, 
for whose redemption " the only begotten Son " 



276 

laid down his own precious life! an infinite sacri- 
fice, worse than in vain for them ! Truly, they 
" deny the Lord that bought them ; and bring up- 
on themselves swift destruction." 

29. One cardinal doctrine of Christianity may in 
our theological reasoning be never forgotten with 
impunity or safety : it is — the sinfulness, the 

POSITIVE ILL-DESERT AND JUDICIAL EXPOSURE OF THE 

whole species. To deny this, is to deny the gos- 
pel, as well as the law, of God. A system devised 
on purpose to save sinners, to save them from sin 
and hell, has no mercy to offer to the innocent and 
the safe : and if these are all, that system is super- 
fluous and vain. But to admit this, namely, the 
sinfulness of every individual as morally fallen and 
obnoxious, is also to admit, in honesty and consis- 
tency alike, that none of us has any thing to claim 
or pretend on the ground of desert, or any thing 
to fear but from the justice of God, or any thing 
to hope but from his grace, his free and rich and 
wonderful favor toward the guilty and the lost, 
through the glorious and only Mediator. 

30. On the last fundamental principle rests ano- 
ther, or is allied to it as its proper and pervading 
counterpart ; the importance of which is properly 
infinite and most demonstrably true : namely, that 
God, in conferring favors on the guilty, that is, 
where all deserve in justice the precise opposite of 
favor, may be a most sovereign and independent 
Potentate, and may show himself such, in realizing 
to whom he will, such favors, in kind and degree, 
in manner and in form, as to himself seems good 



277 

and proper. With this, however, we are to remem- 
ber that sovereignty divine is not arbitrariness — or 
caprice or partiality or favoritism, or any other un- 
principled or ignorant quality. God has reasons 
for all he does. They are infinitely the best rea- 
sons in the universe. They are infinitely benevo- 
lent and infinitely enlightened. They are measured 
on a scale of infinite, intending the best and the 
greatest good of being: and securing this j end 
perpetually and gloriously in a manifold and perfect 
dispensation. He cannot be ignorant of opposing 
interests and opposite considerations : nor can he 
act against the stronger motive, or prefer in any 
case a less to a greater good, or a greater to a less 
evil. Accordingly, he does all he morally and 
wisely can, in the circumstances, for the salvation 
of every human being. But it is false and rui- 
nous, fundamentally so, to affirm that he must 
make no discriminations of sovereign donation and 
grace ; that he must do as much in every sense for 
one man as another ; and that HE must not decide 
how many and personally who shall hear the 
gospel, obey it, do their duty, embrace the Savior, 
and be saved by grace for ever. Rom. 11 : 4-7 > 
4: 13-16. Matt. 20; 13-16. 
My chief proposition is that 

QUAKERISM: IS NOT CHRISTIANITY. 

My meaning is — not that Quakerism is, in all its 
parts, separately taken, hostile to Christianity ; nor 
that it is in none identical with Christianity ; nor 



275 

that in all its parts it must be repudiated by chris- 
tians : but only that its distinctive characteristics, 
major and minor, constitute a system, which, as 
such, is not Christianity, is radically wrong ; and 
consequently that it ought to be universally ab- 
jured — since it is neither the duty nor the interest 
of any individual to mistake the truth or not to 
know what it is. The views of Friends, touching 
the scriptures, the light within, the nature of wor- 
ship, the office of reason in religion, spiritual duty 
and the way of performing it, are among their major 
characteristics : from which all the others homoge- 
neously flow. It will be no refutation therefore to 
show that in minor respects Quakerism is right, or 
that in such I am wrong ; the distinctive charac- 
teristics, that make the system, must be honestly 
analyzed and shown not only to be consistent with 
Christianity, and identical with it, but the identity 
itself— or, nothing is shown that sustains its une- 
quaied pretensions, or properly relieves it from the 
impeachment that the wisest and the best, of all 
ages since its rise, have never ceased to maintain 
against it. It has been constantly denounced by 
the noblest servants of God that have lived as its 
cotemporaries since the times of Owen and Baxter, 
Bates and Howe ; — and it is lauded by the loose, 
the infidel liberal, the volatile, the heretical notori- 
ously : by those who, all grouped together, consti- 
tute an anti-evangelical assemblage, whose praise 
is dishonor and whose censure commendation. 

One specimen of what the most excellent Bax- 
ter. •• the ecclesiastical Demosthenes of the seven- 



279 

teenth century," thought, may here be subjoined. 
At Kidderminster, a place favored and transformed 
through his powerful ministry, he says ; " The 
Quakers would fain have got entertainment, and 
set up a meeting in the town, and frequently railed 
at me in the congregation ; but when I had once 
given them leave to meet in the church for a dis- 
pute, and, before the people, had opened their 
deceits and shame, none would entertain them 
more, nor did they get one proselyte among us." 
I ask any christian who is not afraid of the truth, 
whether Baxter would have built them up on their 
own foundation 1 and whether he could have done 
it, without deserting Jesus Christ, at least for the 
time'? 

In saying that Quakerism is not Christianity, let 
then the proposition be properly understood. 

I mean that, while it claims identity with Chris- 
tianity, and while its claims are perfectly seraphic 
and exclusive, it is itself a delusive corruption 
and a hideous caricature of that divine system. 
Principia non homines — we write impersonally of 
the system. My great reason for this is a convic- 
tion, which I shall attempt to evidence to others, 
that it is not the religion of the scriptures ; but a 
scheme often fundamentally opposed, in doctrine 
and spirit, to the genuine import of those " lively 
oracles." I of course identify Christianity with the 
religion of the scriptures. 

My practical inference is that Quakerism ought 
to be universally abjured and the scriptures univer- 
sally received as the superlative substitute : and 



280 

this, at the hazard of all consequences ; since he 
who knows his duty toward God, and refuses to 
perform it, must, without repentance, sink into 
" everlasting destruction." There can be no com- 
promise in our known spiritual duty. 

My predominating hope of doing good by this 
treatise is not necessarily that it will be extensively 
read by Friends ; or — consequently — that it will 
immediately benefit them; but, satisfied as I am 
that Quakerism shall yet be dissipated by the in- 
fluence of scripture, it is that others who read, may 
know what that system is, (which however is pro- 
perly no system,) as contradistinguished from Chris- 
tianity ; and thus that this work may, by the bless- 
ing of God, in some measure subserve the advance- 
ment of the knowledge that shall ultimately make 
"the light of the moon as the light of the sun;" and 
which, investing all objects with its genial flood, 
shall dissolve that formidable iceberg on which so 
many barks have foundered and so many men — I 
fear — perished for ever ! 

My source of proof shall be mainly the scriptures. 
In adducing however for refutation the cardinal 
and known peculiarities of Quakerism, I shall not 
encumber these pages with unnecessary proofs or 
quotations. I know the system, and have read and 
studied many of their standard books, particularly 
Barclay's Apology, which I have often read, and 
have recently and thoroughly reperused. I am of 
course responsible, and I hope not incorrigible, in 
respect to mistakes or misstatements. 

Some respectable christians will doubtless cen- 



281 

sure the radicalism, as it may seem to them, of this 
way of procedure. Professing no love of innova- 
tion for its own sake, nor inclining at all to mistake 
it for improvement, as if the two were always iden- 
tical, I confess myself unable to accede to the sen- 
timent that Friends are to be meliorated and edified 
on their own foundation. I believe their system, as 
such, to be fundamentally false : hence I cannot 
trifle with them or be other than radicalizing in 
opposition to their system. For this, on their ac- 
count, I am cordially sorry and consciously grieved 
at heart ; having no wish to make enemies or to 
hurt the feelings of a human being. Often have I 
tried to find some Tarshish conveyance, from the 
great Nineveh of my apprehended duty: but, in 
that direction, I as often anticipated a storm, a ship- 
wreck, a whale. To me indeed it seems only won- 
derful that christian men and christian ministers 
should ever take the ground of compromise, in re- 
lation to the system. Did they ever intelligently 
compare 1 Cor. 3 : 11, with Gal. 1 : 6-91 I ascribe 
their lenity mainly to ignorance and superficial 
judgment respecting it: while I have "counted the 
cost " of a more thorough position, in view of pos- 
sible consequences. 

Still, to the persons of Friends, I am conscious 
only of good will and tenderness. Could I not 
distinguish between them and their system, in cer- 
tain modifications, I should have hope for none of 
them. As it is, I am quite willing to entreat them; 
to expostulate with them; and to beseech them 
to hear me candidly. If they see my faults, my 

3<> 



2S2 

prejudices, my extravagance, my seventy, let them 
show the magnanimity of their own christian con- 
descension; and put such a construction of chari- 
tableness on the deed, as will suit their own ideas 
of its indefinite largeness. To their youth, espe- 
cially their young men, I would speak with some 
hope of being rationally considered and generously 
appreciated. I have been such an one myself, 
Them I venture to counsel as I would my own 
soul. Experience enables me to know and to feel 
as they do. I sympathize with them. Still, I- sum- 
mon them to manliness and moral courage of in- 
vestigation. Will they so believe the system of 
their sires, as if it were true only because they 
taught it to them 1 or as if examination would ruin 
it ! A strange way to believe it ! What is this but 
disbelief of its ultimate truth \ Do you, I would 
say to them, think it a privilege to err? to be 
Friends, even if you are not christians ! to think 
Quakerism and Christianity identical, while fearing 
to consult evidence or look at the nature of the 
things 1 Then must you live and die — Friends, just 
as your fathers did: and certainly they ought to 
have been right ! 

I commence with an investigation of their doc- 
trine of the ixward light. That doctrine is that 
there is in every man, by the goodness of his Crea- 
tor, a certain ' inward light: which is equcdly in all 
men of all ages and of all countries, by attention 
to the monitions of which men come into a state of 
spirituality and salvation ; and " the only cause 
why some men are more benefited by its beams than 



283 

others, is this — that some men pay more attention 
to it than others"— Barclay. 

Every sect that radically deviates from pure Chris- 
tianity, is characterized by some fundamental error, 
which is called the grand error of the system. 
Such an error do I conceive the inward light to be 
in the scheme of Quakerism. It is the centre of 
the system; the basis of the structure; the parent 
of all its obliquities. And if, after all, it should 
appear to be an ignis fatuus, a meteor of a troubled 
atmosphere, an airy and mischievous illusion, what 
is their condition, what their end, who have con- 
signed themselves to its fatal guidance 1 " If the 
light which is in thee," &c. I once utterly believed 
it true — and it was the search and the faith of the 
scriptures that cured me of the prejudice. My 
reasons are the following : the impossibility of an 
intelligible definition of its nature ; the argument, 
from the admission of its truth, that the scriptures 
are superfluous ; the fact that all the real knowledge 
and intelligible preaching of Friends are derived 
from the scriptures^ the condition and practice of 
those nations, who, being destitute of the scrip- 
tures, but not on this theory of the inward light, 
have had nothing to embarrass the growth of its 
natural fruits ; the missionary practice of apostles, 
in carrying the gospel to distant nations and preach- 
ing it to all the world, as if the gospel so preached, 
and not the universal inward light, was to be the 
instrument of salvation " to every one that be- 
lieveth ;" the character of their preaching, and also 
of his who commissioned and preceded them, as 



284 

wonderfully destitute of all force and propriety, in 
respect to the doctrine of inward light, if that doc- 
trine be true ; the fallacy of all the evidence upon 
which the doctrine affects to be supported by scrip- 
ture ; the powerful decision of many passages 
against it ; the innumerable contradictions of that 
light as it shines from Friends; the paramount 
office of scripture, according to its own claims, as 
our rule in religion. On each of these reasons I 
propose to enlarge. 

I. The impossibility of an intelligible de- 
finition of its nature, if there were nothing else 
to impeach its credibility, would authorize a denial 
of its claims, would absolutely require this at our 
hands. 

What is this inward light ? is a question which 
we have a right to ask ; and which they ought to 
answer, who say of its authority that it is para- 
mount to the scriptures ; and of its efficacy that by 
attending to its influence, we come into a state of 
salvation. Is it reason, or conscience, or know- 
ledge, or holiness, or blind impulse, or spontaneous 
action, or monitorial suggestion, or the Spirit of 
God in his person or his influences 1 What is the 
thing which they mean, if they mean definitely any 
thing, when they speak of " the light within 1" Let 
them not scorn this question. It is worthier of their 
consideration than their contempt. We are serious 
who ask it. We cannot indeed help our conviction 
that there is no such thing properly in existence. 
Friends are wont to use the pronoun and the rela- 
tive, instead of the direct antecedent, when they 



285 

speak of this indefinable influence. They say, for 
I have often heard them, it will leach thee, it will 
guide thee, it will keep thee from the enemy, and 
bring thee under the shadow of the Almighty, This 
is all very fine ; and concerning the scripture in- 
strumentally, or the Holy Spirit personally, or reli- 
gion personified, it is both intelligible and true. 
But here I demand a definition of "it." To what 
must I attend, ichat must I follow, by what rule 
must I go, in order to these halcyon and heavenly 
results'! They do not mean the scripture, unques- 
tionably. Do they then mean the intellectual fa- 
culty ? This they often disclaim. " We look upon 
reason as fit to order and rule man in things na- 
tural — yet that not being the right organ — it cannot 
profit him toward salvation, but rather hindereth." — 
Barclay. 

Is it conscience ? As often do they deny this ver- 
sion of the inward light. "Our adversaries — calum- 
niate us, as if we preached up a natural light, or 
the light of man's naturalconscience : — as if this 
which we preach up were some natural power and 
faculty of the soul, and that we only differ in the 
wording of it, and not in the thing itself — this light 
of which we speak is not only distinct, but of a 
different nature from the soul of man, and its facul- 
ties." — Barclay. 

Take one specimen, however, of his own 

"preaching up." It evinces their common style, 

and either exalts conscience into "a more noble and 

excellent rule" than the word of God ; or, — whai 

does it mean ? He says that Friends " cannot cease 



286 

to proclaim the day of the Lord that is arisen in 
it," (the light) in order " that others may come and 
feel the same in themselves, and may know that 
KT 5 ' that little small thing that «_£# reproves them in 
their hearts, however they have despised and neg- 
lected C^ it .=£0 is nothing less than the gospel 
preached in them ; Christ, the wisdom and power 
of God, being in and by that seed seeking to save 
their souls." What a body of divinity there must 
be, in "that little small thing" that lives so uncom- 
fortably in us ! I have transferred his words, just 
as they are in the Apology — except the hands ! 
How much greater the day (misty as it is) that 
Barclay sheds on that miserable little nondescript, 
than any of its own ! As if a man should take a 
blazing flambeau into a dark damp grotto under 
ground to see — a suffocating firefly ! and as if this, 
when seen, should puzzle all the entomologists, in 
the country and out of it, to ascertain its definition, 
species, genus, order, class, or kingdom ! 

If it be admitted that they mean something, of 
which their rational conception is bewildered, one 
might be allowed to say, it seems certain that they 
ignorantly mean nothing but natural conscience. I 
have often heard their preachers, in their inspired 
communications, and others in common parlance, 
appeal to us, if we had never felt that in us that 
condemns us when we trespass, the witness that 
cannot be hid " in a corner," or bribed or doubted ; 
that is " a terror to evil doers and a praise to them 
that do well." This is in substance one of their 
very common forms of popular inculcation and ap- 



287 

peal ; and as it is addressed to all without discri- 
mination, and not to saints in particular, I see not 
how it substantially differs from the unmystical 
appeal often heard from our pulpits ; as when the 
preacher says ; " Have you not often violated or 
defiled your own consciences 1 done what you 
knew was displeasing to God at the time, and so 
sinned directly against his majesty and goodness T 5 
But they reclaim at the sentiment. Their mean- 
ing, they say, is far sublimer than mere con- 
science. And plainly their doctrine would be 
ridiculous, thus stated, every man has a natural 
conscience ; a truism which nobody disputes. Nei- 
ther is it knoicledge that constitutes this wonderful 
light, unless knowledge be innate, or unless it be 
of some supernatural description altogether above 
definition. Is it holiness, moral excellence, confor- 
mity of heart to God 1 This will hardly be affirmed . 
When God defines the human heart for the human 
species, he defines it as " deceitful above all things 
and desperately wicked." What an omission, if 
there be somewhat radically excellent and allied 
to his own beauty in the moral countenance of 
man ! That some of the Friends believe in a re- 
maining particle of goodness in the human heart, I 
know; that many have this infidel belief, I fear; 
and that their very erroneous conceptions of that 
fundamental article, the depraved natural character 
of man, take their rise from the dogma of inward 
light, I fully believe. They often speak of the 
inward seed which God hath planted in all the 
hearts of his human creatures, and which strives 



288 

to take root and grow and bear fruit ; but is too 
much oppressed, by " the activity of the creature " 
and other causes, to come to perfection. They 
speak of " the principle ;" they say they " believe 
in the principle." They speak of following "the 
principle." But all this is no definition. It is 
not gospel, it is not sense. It is mysticism and 
indevotional cant ! And it is worse — to infinity, 
precisely, worse — because of the darkness and 
uncertainty it sheds upon a subject of vital im- 
port to the souls of men ! They tell us too that 
it is in "the openings of the principle" that their 
preachers are " clothed " with power to speak to 
the states of their auditory : i. e. the expansion 
of this inward light it is that makes the inspiration 
of their preachers. This is probable. But still the 
question returns; what is "it?" What is "that 
which " and so forth 1 Is it blind impulse, a mere 
actuating of the mind 1 This they will hardly af- 
firm. And yet / have seen and heard such things 
in their preachers as seemed to me to imply that 
they felt themselves to be each a mere mouthpiece 
or mechanical echo to some superior mind ! They 
often rise as if by physical impulsion, stand through 
a long introductory pause, inform their hearers that 
they know not what they have to communicate — 
that they had "premeditated" nothing — but, that 
" it was impressed with indubitable clearness in the 
secret of the mind that," &>c. according to the 
matter " revealed " to them : and this, while they 
preach almost the same sermon throughout which 
they have delivered frequently before. Sometimes 



289 

the stamp of their commission is for the moment 
not quite so legible or certain to themselves. Then 
the light teaches such a style as this ; " My mind 
hath been exercised — I felt a concern to address — I 
should feel easier to say a few words — perhaps I 
should reach the state of some present, if I gave 
utterance to what hath been communicated to my 
own soul." This indeed is strange inspiration, and 
we shall not feel relieved by the adduction of a 
thousand similar specimens, in regard to a defini- 
tion of the true nature of the light within. What 
christian does not pity an audience of many hun- 
dreds, listening to such oracular edification as this ! 
I have instanced spontaneous motion or action, 
meaning a kind of free-spiritedness, by which, be- 
cause they "feel easy" to take a particular course, 
they infer that it is divinely sanctioned and all in 
the light : arid also monitorial suggestion, because 
they often act, as if an aerial prompter or angelic 
mentor were behind them, telling them the way. 
This is seen in their wonderful occasional abrupt- 
ness. Sometimes darting up to speak, 48 as if by 
electric influence; and then darting down again, 
as if, almost in the middle of their subject, the in- 
spiring influence was withdrawn or an inspired veto 
administered. If this be a ridiculous picture, I am 
sure it is a true one ! Friends also know it, espe- 
cially the more intelligent. The quality of ridicu- 
lous is not in the painter ; nor would it be in the 
portrait, but for the features of the original ; which 
are not exceeded in the delineation. It is a picture 
over which I could weep and groan ! What will 

37 



290 



etermty reveal as the consequ f all this degra- 

dation of the worship of God ! Can the God of the 

New Testament approve ot such soft and silly ma- 



nagement ! 



But do they refer to the Spirit of God. in his per- 
son or his influence, these powers and properties 
oi the light icithin ! I am aware that sometimes in 
theory, and perhaps in practice, they do ; nay. that 
this is their grand pretension. But. allowing for a 
moment that the light itself depends for its exis- 
tence on the Spirit oi God. still, this does not an- 

er the question, ichat is its nature ! The S. 
may affect any one of the mental faculties, may 
approach and influence the mind in a variety of 
forms and degrees, and through different mediums ; 
but what is that influence in every man and in 
erery age and country that constitutes their idea oi 
intcard light ! I believe it is properly -indefinable — 
because it is a sheer nonentity, a mental creation, 
a dream of an undisciplined mind that runs before 
evidence, or rather without and against it — a mind 
that makes the objects that it sees, and very sin- 
cerely this is not ironical, for sincerity is not syno- 
nymous with correctness" mistakes its own ima- 
ginings for the suggestions of "the eternal Spirit 1" 
But is it not awful! Must the divine Author ot the 
Bible be made responsible for the lawless visions 
of men ! and these visions of extravagance be held 
co-ordinate with the written " oracles of God :" nay. 
paramount to them ! But. aside from the manifest 
impiety of this, (which is perhaps one of the worst 
things in Quakerism and one of the most danger- 



291 

ous corruptions in Christendom,) what is its moral 
influence on the abettors of the scheme 1 Does it 
make them christians? does it sanctify them ac- 
ceptable to God through Jesus Christ our Lord 1 
If salvation be possible in consistency with such 
error, which plainly challenges a doubt, it is not by 
the error, but in spite of it, that the mercy of God 
" rejoiceth against judgment." Error is poison; 
the poison of the soul : and though we might pos- 
sibly receive a given quantity of poison, mingled 
with our food, and eat it without death, yet no one 
is to be commended for such an act, especially if, 
by repetition, it becomes a habit ; while the exam- 
ple may influence others whose judgment of the 
safe proportion may not be advised, and whose 
exit by the indulgence may be inevitable. 

The assumed connection between inward light 
and the influence of the Holy Spirit, (of whose 
person and name we know nothing that the scrip- 
tures have not taught us,) is of prime importance 
in this controversy ; and worthy, if possible, to be 
rationally resolved. By the Spirit they intend that 
same divine Agent by whom the scriptures were 
inspired. But if He is not the author of their 
inward light or at all chargeable with their inspired 
communications, if the proper characteristics of 
Quakerism arise from some other source, how un- 
speakably important that this should be known by 
all! It is my full and deep conviction that the 
Author of the scriptures is not the Author 
of Quakerism : that they are two and distinct and 
opposite spirits ! and that Quakerism hath origi- 



292 

nated from neglect or violation of this scriptural 
commandment, in common with innumerable others, 
of the Holy Ghost ; " Believe not every spirit, but 
try the spirits whether they are, of God ; because 
MANY false prophets are gone out into the 
world. Hereby know ye [ascertain ye — impe- 
ratively] the Spirit of God : Every spirit that 
confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is 
of God. And every spirit that confesseth not that 
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God : 
and this is that spirit of anti-christ, whereof ye 
have heard that it should come ; and even now 
already is it in the world." 1 John, 4 : 1-3. 

On this important passage, of the known and 
genuine words of the Holy Ghost, permit a few 
reflections. It is given as a criterion of discrimi- 
nation between the Spirit of Christ and the spirit 
of anti-christ. The words that confesseth do not 
mean that admits with reluctance or constraint; as 
if tortured to the admission ; but that boldly and 
in a way that characterizes, asserts the important 
fact, without disparaging its amazing value or cor- 
rupting its sublime intention. It refers to the pro- 
fession of cardinal doctrine. This might easily be 
demonstrated — and shall be, when the comment is 
respectably denied. The object of this confession, 
the proposition that Jesus Christ is come \has come] 
in the flesh, means (as can be rigidly shown, when 
necessary) that Jesus, the Messiah, has out- 
wardly come in human nature ; plainly according 
to the historical testimony of the four evangelists : 
verses 9 and 10. From these I infer that whatever 



293 

spirit is not characterized in his influences, by 
professing and magnifying that grand proposition 9 
is a limb of anti-christ. Now let us " try " Qua- 
kerism by this inspired criterion. It is the spirit 
of Quakerism to confess that Jesus Christ from 
the beginning of the world, comes inwardly, spi- 
ritually, imp alp ably, in the hearts of all men, 
as a " little small thing." How is this coming in 
the flesh, according to the sense of scriptural phrase- 
ology 1 He " came into the world to save sinners ;" 
and this " is a faithful saying and worthy of all 
acceptation." He " came to seek and to save that 
which was lost : — not to be ministered unto, but to 
minister, and to give his life a ransom for many : 
Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on 
the tree ; When the fulness of the time was come, 
God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made 
under the law, to redeem them that were under the 
law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." 
This is the way in which " Jesus Christ came in 
the flesh ;" and the confession of that fundamental 
fact is made (by the criterion) the signal of the 
Spirit of Christ, and its non-confession the index 
of anti-christ. But the confession is too outward 
for Friends. 

In regard to the expression in the flesh, it may 
be remarked that the word flesh, in the style of 
scripture, is (not mystically though) often figura- 
tively used : that it means either (1) flesh literally; 
or, (2) flesh morally, as the moral character of 
man ; or, (3) flesh, referring to the species or hu- 
man nature or mankind ; that in this last sense is 



294 

the expression to be understood when it is said 
Jesus Christ has come in the flesh ; that is, in hu- 
man nature. Compare Rom. 8 : 3. 9:5. 1 Tim. 
3:16. 1 Pet. 3:18. 4:1. 1 John, 4 : 2, 3. 2 John, 
7. John, 1 : 14. There are doubtless other senses ; 
but these are the main ones ; with which however 
should be mentioned another, namely, (4) the state 
of human life temporal, as distinguished from that 
beyond the grave : as Paul says, Phil. 1 : 24, " to 
abide in the flesh is more needful for you." I have 
heard one silly version of the proposition which is 
proposed as the criterion ; it was given to me very 
confidently by a preacher of Friends. "In the 
flesh" said he ; " Christ has come in the flesh : that 
is the inward light, because it is in our flesh, it is 
inside of us. He is anti-christ that denies it !" 
Though the sage seems to think himself withal one 
of the wonders of the age, and though in divers sin- 
gular respects he is truly a wonderful character and 
as certainly inspired as any other of his fraternity, 
yet is he one of those whose letters I never an- 
swer and whose positions I have ceased to deny. 
Tale portentum refutatione indignum est, as Calvin 
says of universalism : — a monstrosity of this sort 
is unworthy of serious refutation. He is too im- 
pervious to common sense and scripture, to be 
worthy of sober argument. " For many deceivers 
are entered into the world, who confess not that 
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a de- 
ceiver and an anti-christ." 2 John, 7. 

Now take a few specimens (thousands might be 
given) of the confession of Friends. " Christ is 



295 

in all men as in a seed, yea, and he never is nor 
can be separate from that holy pure seed and light 
which is in all men. In this respect then, as he is 
in the seed which is in all men, we have said Christ 
is in all men, and have preached and directed all 
men to Christ in them, who lies crucified in them 
by their sins and iniquities, that they may look 
upon him whom they have pierced, and repent : 
whereby he that now lies as it were slain and bu- 
ried in them, may come to be raised, and have do- 
minion in their hearts over all." — Barclay. 

This mysticism and heresy is a true, but a very 
moderate specimen of their general confession. As 
a fact I can attest its truth that they do thus say 
and preach and direct men. It is their grand 

AND THEIR VERY DISTINGUISHING CONFESSION. It 

is the great metropolis of the foxian empire : and 
its native influence and actual result are utterly to 
disparage and obscure the real advent, the real 
crucifixion, the real atonement, of the Son of God ! 
It is the hostile opposite of the criterion proposi- 
tion, Jesus Christ has come in human nature ! 
Speaking of the Jews, the apostle puts it as the 
climax of their dignities that " of them, as con- 
cerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, 
God blessed for ever." Here he teaches that 
Christ is both God and man in one person ; that in 
his human nature he is descended of Jewish pa- 
rents ; that in his superior nature he is the supreme 
God: and that he thus "came" into the world. 
This splendid fact is worthy to be made the con- 
fession of the church of Christ. 



296 

I now appeal to the conscience of the reader ; 
and to his intelligence, if he have habitually and 
candidly perused the scriptures ; whether the spirit 
of Quakerism be not the spirit of anti-christ ? I do 
not here accuse them, of what they disclaim. They 
believe the historical fact of the mission of Christ 
to our world. They admit " his miraculous concep- 
tion, birth, life, miracles, death, resurrection and 
ascension," 49 as matters of fact. But this is not 
the question. Does this outward matter charac- 
terize them 1 Is it their confession 1 " We require 
no formal subscription to any articles, either as a 
condition of membership or a qualification for the 
service of the church." 49 How then do they " try 
the spirits?" By the anti-christian dogma that — 
" Every man coming into the world, is endued with 
a measure of the light, grace or good Spirit of 
Christ." 49 This is their confession ! — a thing, espe- 
cially in reference to a universal and equal and 
native participation of the Spirit of Christ, which I 
intend to disprove in the course of these pages. 
Barclay admits the fact of the personal advent, 
here and there, and states it passingly, in his big 
volume ; but no more. I infer that their spirit is 
not of God. 

Thus, though I cannot define the nature of what 
they mean by the inward light, I have traced it to 
its source ; or at least evinced that it is very diffe- 
rent from the influence of the Spirit of God, ac- 
cording to an inspired criterion. The counterfeits 
of a perishable currency we are all wise to detect : 
but the infinitely more deleterious counterfeits of 



297 

Christianity, we are strangely slow to discriminate, 
If men valued their souls as much as their pro- 
perty, they would wisely resist the imposing fabrics 
of the enemy. This, bible christians are taught 
to do by the outward light of scripture, in the com- 
mencement of their religious course ; " lest Satan 
should get an advantage of us ; for we are not 
ignorant of his devices." How necessary this to 
the safety of the soul ! " And no marvel ; for Satan 
himself is transformed into an angel of light. Be- 
ware of false prophets, which come to you in 
sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening 
wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits." But 
the criterion-fruit, the primary index of their 
genuineness or corruption — remember — is their 
" confession," their doctrine, the moral scope of 
their influence, as tested by " the oracles of God ;" 
and not their " sheep's clothing," their arts of in- 
gratiating, their placid and benign appearance, 
their sublime professions, their overflowing love for 
every body, their regular irreproachable morality, 
or any of their personal or active characteristics ; 
(in which things many of the ancient pharisees sur- 
passed them ;) while their confession is vitiated, 
defective, or heretical. 

No man who has a just conception of the death 
of Christ as an " offering for sin," through whose 
atonement and mediation alone as a Savior by his 
cross, one human being ever was or will be saved, 
can think it other than congruous that the confes- 
sion of his advent in the flesh, as a historical (as it 
was before a prophetical) fact, should be divinely 

38 



298 

made a criterion of discrimination between Christ 
and antichrist ; or that Quakerism should be con- 
demned by that plain test, since its confession is so 
very dissimilar and mystically different, from the 
facts of his mission and passion as detailed by the 
Evangelists. 

Before I leave this question of the nature of the 
light, it may be proper to suggest a suspicion long 
entertained and (I believe) valid, that there is some, 
perhaps much, of pure materializing in their view 
of it. An inserted flame that tends to kindle into 
gla w and splendor, but is well nigh suffocated with 
humid air and adverse influences ; a seed that strives 
to grow, but cannot ; an embryo Savior within 
struggling to be delivered, and a people sitting still 
in silence to suffer the physiological operation ! 
These are their ordinary figures of illustration ! 
But — consider, is it not a mechanical representa- 
tion ] What has it to do with our oxen moral agency, 
which scripture every where describes as the me- 
diate arbiter of character and destiny! It is not 
spirituality at all ! It is blindness, grossness, mate- 
rialism, presuming folly, and essential falsehood. 

II. The argument, from the admission of the 
truth of this universal light within, that the 
scriptures are superfluous, is, I think, rational and 
sound. Why should we prefer the difficult to the 
easy, the obsolete to the recent, the less to the 
greater, the distant to the near \ What use of the 
inferior when we have the pa?-amount ? The con- 
sistency of some Friends on this article, makes them 
at once malignant fanatics and delirious infidels I 



299 

The policy of the powers of darkness is one of 
great moral unity. Unconverted men, who " hate 
the light that has come into the world," are all 
united in the end, however they differ in the means, 
to get rid of it. They all however require some 
specious substitute for " the holy scriptures, 

WHICH ARE ABLE TO MAKE US WISE UNTO SALVATION, 
THROUGH FAITH WHICH IS IN CHRIST JESUS." It 

is also necessary that this substitute should some 
how be made to appear intrinsically and relatively 
superior to " the oracles of God ;" that so they 
may support the character of candid and philo- 
sophic men, who prefer only what is " more excel- 
lent," and prefer it rigidly on that account. Thus 
the papist, the socinian, the deist, the philosopher 
of scepticism, the mere man of the world, the 
Friend, and all other impugners of the paramount 
authority of scripture, have each a favorite mode 
of avoiding and disparaging the volume of God. 
But it is manifest that their common aim is one. 
Their common cause is one, their common charac- 
ter ; and with some possible exceptions and pro- 
bable differences in degree, one shall be their 
common doom. Their security is presumption — 
at least it is a far different thing from their safety. 
" For when they shall say ' peace and safety ;' then 
sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail 
upon a woman with child ; and they shall not 
escape." Their sincerity will not save them. 

The papist has the tradition of the church, and 
the infallibility of " the man of sin" for his sup- 
posed vindication ; while his Bible moulders un- 



300 

read, covered with dust, enshrouded in the web of 
the .spider, and hid in some unfrequented nook of 
his cloister. His responsibility is all devolved upon 
a mere abstraction — the church. So say the church, 
and I must believe it, is the summary of his creed. 
What a conveniency ! almost as good as " a mea- 
sure " of inward light. But who is the church t 
Of this community each one is a constituent mem- 
ber ; but, in his creed, each depends upon all 
the others ; all manage to alienate their individual 
responsibility ; the whole of them elude its pres- 
sure ; the Pope himself believes as the church does ; 
the voice of the Bible is drowned in the din ; and 
iniquitous superstition, bigotted, bloody, persecut- 
ing, blind, and infallible as Quaker inspiration, 
performs its pagan orgies of execrable devotion — 
besides maintaining the lateran council, commis- 
sioning the Jesuits, canonizing sinners, vend- 
ing indulgences, managing the fires of purgatory* 
comforting the Inquisition, and wielding the Pro- 
paganda. 

The socinian admits the general truth of Chris- 
tianity : but makes his oicn reason, i. e. his selfish- 
ness, so to interpret the meaning of its documents, 
that he learnedly ascertains from them all his pe- 
culiar views. Reason is his substitute ; — a goddess 
well bred and vastly genteel, but often as fanatical 
as the priestess on the tripod ; as perfidious, not 
to say as profligate, as the deity of revolutionary 
France. To Reason he can latently prescribe what 
she must sanction ; and thus he manages to antici- 
pate what scripture must reveal. There are no 



301 



mysteries in his creed : — except that he should 
need any revealed help from heaven, seeing he can 
teach and reform it when it comes ! With him 
Jesus Christ is only a creature ; his death a mere 
sentimental display of suffering virtue, or conscious 
truth, or sublime martyrdom ; and at all events no 
atonement for our sins : Satan is a mere personi- 
fication of evil ; and hell a nonentity. With him 
experimental religion is not revealed in the Bible ; 
eternal punishment is a pure impossibility, which 
no evidence can prove ; regeneration is an absur- 
dity ; serious religion the effect of ignorance ; and 
the Holy Ghost himself no person, no being; but a 
mere attribute, energy, relation, quality, virtue, 
influence. Thus he evades the whole power of 
the gospel, and is — a gentleman. 

The deist comes to the same result by extrava- 
gantly magnifying the light of nature. So great is 
this light, that the Bible is unnecessary. He can 
demonstrate that God is not prodigal of his gifts ; 
and when " the heavens declare his glory and the 
firmanent showeth his handy work," as there is no 
necessity, so neither is there any reality in a reve- 
lation of another sort. And we must admit, he 
says, his conclusions, if we grant his premises : for 
God is a wise economist, as well as a most munifi- 
cent king ; and what is altogether unnecessary, 
he will assuredly not communicate : and of tvhat is 
necessary, the deist is a competent judge. 

Safe in the hands of one disposing power, 
Or in the natal or the mortal hour. 



302 

The sceptical philosopher is the disciple of the 
lights of science. He is above the need of celes- 
tial guidance. The Bible will do for the herd, but 
he is elevated above the necessity of such anti- 
quated rules. He is as well assured as if his geo- 
graphy had mapped the interior of the eternal 
world. He understands the wonderful facts of 
natural, and the sublime discoveries of contempla- 
tive and experimental science. He has learned to 
doubt where others are sufficiently gross to be- 
lieve ; having ascertained that the philosophy of 
the Bible is radically wrong. It may be a good 
book to awe the world and aid the magistracy. 
But if all men were as enlightened by philosophy 
as some are, the Bible would be utterly exploded. 
In the times of Robert Boyle and Sir Isaac New- 
ton, philosophers were not " renewed up " to these 
heliocentric discoveries. 

The mere man of the world finds pleasure, and 
wants no more. This divinity is with him a suc- 
cedaneum for God and goodness. The Bible is 
good for the squalid and the unfortunate ; 

As beads and prayer-books are the toys of age; 

But if all could be as happy without it, as he is, its 
room would be better than its company. What a 
pity that such voluptuaries should ever get sick and 
die; and possibly come to judgment in a future 
state ! But every now and then it happens that 
one drops off. 

The Friend gets rid of the Bible as effectually 



303 

as any one of the foregoing, and much more spe- 
ciously. And why not, since he has something 
better within ? why not, when the inward light is 
"paramount 1 ? They have the spirit, that teaches 
them to disparage the words of the Spirit ! They 
drink at the fountain, and what need of the streams 1 
They walk by the Lawgiver, and not by the law ! 
Their preachers are just as really inspired as was 
Paul ; and why go to his antiquated writings, when 
they have fresh inspirations at hand 1 Beside, 
Friends doubt sometimes whether Paul was in- 
spired in all that he wrote. There are some things 
in his epistles that look rather carnal ; as if he was 
not then " delivered from the letter," or as if he 
had strayed away from his guide ; as they often do ! 

That Friends do, all of them, in London, New- 
York, and Philadelphia, and of all ages since their 
rise, unite in denying the paramount authority of 
scripture, is infallibly a fact. That they do this 
with much subtlety of argumentation, I believe ;— 
as I also believe that their argumentation is in its 
process pure sophistry, and in its result pure heresy. 

Their grand sophism may be detected by distin- 
guishing the personal dignity of the Spirit, com- 
pared with all his influences. It is a more general 
truth that the Agent is greater than the action. 
The Holy Ghost is greater than the scriptures, and 
greater than a miracle, and greater than creation. 
He is greater than any or all of his influences, 
miraculous or ordinary. Why are Friends so ela- 
borate, with Fox and Barclay at their head, to 
prove what no christian ever denied 1 The Holy 



304 

Ghost is God, and God is greater than all his 
works. The inspiration of the scriptures, for the 
use of men, proceeded from the Holy Ghost. Now 4 
what is the position of a consistent protestant here 1 
It is this — the Bible is a code of laws which I am 
obligated, in reverence for its divine Author, heart- 
ily to obey as my paramount rule of faith and 
action. What the position of a Friend \ As the 
Spirit that inspired the Bible is greater than the 
Bible, I am determined by the light within to walk 
by the greater and not by the less. That is — the 
Friend makes a rule of the Ruler, a law of the 
Lawgiver ; and a practical nonentity of the volume 
legislated by rightful authority on purpose to regu- 
late all his actions! This I call THEIR GRAND 
ERROR — the monstrous and mortal sophism of 
the Quakers. Hear their champion. Though the 
scriptures are all true, " nevertheless, because they 
are only a declaration of the fountain, and not 
the fountain itself, therefore they are not to be 
esteemed the principal ground of all truth and know- 
ledge, nor yet the adequate primary rule of faith 
and manners. — Therefore also the Spirit is more 
originally and principally the rule, according to 
that received maxim in the schools, Propter quod 
unumquodque est tale, illud ipsum est magis tale. 
Englished thus : That for which a thing is such, 
that thing itself is more such.'" 

Let us see how this reasoning, applied to the 
legislature of the nation, would evince the superior 
patriotism of its disciples. Ordinary people think 
it right to honor " the powers that be " in a way of 



305 

peaceably obeying the laws. But suppose a poli- 
tical sect should arise to reform us all in that gross 
conception ; and should assume to know a better 
way, a far more excellent style of patriotism. We 
listen to their wisdom ; and this is its sum : " These 
laws, fellow citizens, can never make you patriots. 
They are all indeed very good, and ye are in the 
habit — we hear — of having every family in the 
country provided with a copy of them. For this 
you have large societies and levy a fearful tax upon 
the coffers of the poor. We are afraid that ye are 
all trusting to the dead letter of ordinances ; and 
much concerned that ye should be brought off from 
these outward things to hunt for patriotism in the 
secret of your own hearts. There after all is the 
place for it. Types and paper and law phrases 
never yet made a patriot. It is all within that the 
true virtue is to be found. Beside, if ye would be 
wise, remember that this dotage of yours, in obey- 
ing the laws of your country, is a great affront to 
the legislature. Are the laws greater than the law- 
makers 1 Is it not plain that if you respect them 
for the sake of these, these are themselves worthy 
of much more respect ! That on account of which 
any thing is such, the thing itself is more such. If 
therefore you respect the laws, for the sake of the 
legislature, how plain is it that you are continually 
offending the legislature by such astonishing reve- 
rence for the laws ! But we have risen above all 
these vulgar influences. Our minds are all full of 
the light of patriotism, and so we can do just as 
we please. But because our patriotism is all one 

39 



306 

with that of the legislature itself,- it is quite a thing 
impossible that we should ever transgress the pro- 
visions of the statute-book. 50 We do not however 
submit our doctrines or our actions to be judged by 
that material volume ; especially, because who are 
the judges? none but our doating countrymen! 
But they are not proper judges ; and never can be, 
till their minds become enlightened with our doc- 
trine ; and then they will think just as we do. 
Beside, the statute-book is a very mysterious com- 
position. There is no possibility of knowing what 
it means, without our superhuman illumination, 
even if one sincerely desired nothing so much. 
The legislature contrived it on purpose that it 
might not be understood by common patriots. But 
as soon as you become sublimed by our instruc- 
tions, fellow citizens, (for whom our bowels yearn 
with tenderness and universal love — just Jike that 
in the legislature,) by simply " attending to " the 
light of patriotism in the secret of every heart, (as it 
is there made plain to the suckling and the fool,) 
you will come to know all the mysteries of political 
science, state polity, legislation, jurisprudence, and 
law practice ; yea, you can teach others also, and that 
without all learning and skill in the statute-book. 
You will come to discern the vanity of all legal forms 
and phrases, which the statute-book doth indeed 
appear to you to require, but which we see clearly 
to be cumbrous, expensive, and non-essential. Then 
indeed you will not be fleeced by the lawyers, and 
doctors, and judges. You will utterly retrench all 
these ' hireling' orders. You will see the non-neces- 



307 

sity of all such learned officers, and a thousand 
others, which our countrymen have continued to 
revere only because they have never known the 
liberty of true patriotism; in which tcomen are as 
wise as men in the anointing, and just as capable of 
lecturing on patriotism and instructing large con- 
gregations — while others are misled to believe in 
the paramount authority of the statute-book." In 
such a case of political radicalism as this, every 
real patriot would know how to dispose of it. He 
would see the hypocrisy of the argument, even if 
he believed the sincerity of its venders. The main- 
tenance of the civil state would be impossible upon 
their reforming principles. He would view their 
doctrine as an abscess forming near the heart of 
the body politic ; and though the million might be 
taken with it, though they might praise the good- 
ness and fair appearance of its apostles, masculine 
and feminine, and even mistake them for " angels 
of light," the men whom thought distinguishes, and 
evidence affects, and principle controls, would think 
it patriotism to expose the fallacy of their scheme, 
and denounce the innovation as ruinous to the 
commonwealth. And what is time to — eternity 1 

In particular, it is manifest that the poor statute- 
book would soon become the victim of their ascen- 
dant argument. They would think it, to say the 
least, superfluous. A quotation from its pages, in 
opposition to their views, would be like a straw on 
the case of the crocodile. They would ride in their 
imaginations, especially if they were sincere, over 
the heads of the disparaged community. Fanati- 



308 

cism, sublimed and ethereous, would make a foot- 
ball of civic virtue ! 

Such is the practical tendency and the actual re- 
sult of the light within. The Quakers treat the 
Bible as at best a very subordinate help. Many 
of them openly defame it. One very celebrated 
preacher has publicly and often said that mankind 
had been better without the Bible. And why is 
he not correct, if all men have a portion of the 
Spirit within them superior to it, by simply attend- 
ing to whose monitions they practice righteousness 
and attain salvation 1 I am aware of the double 
(not hidden) character in which I appear before the 
christian public : a witness as well as a disputant. 
But how could I be a mere disputant ; since it was 
what I had witnessed, and what I renounced, on 
my knees with the Bible open, as an act of worship 
to " the only wise God," and what I have with 
much anguish and many tears experienced as the 
consequence of my education and relationships, 
that brought me thus publicly to dispute at all 1 As a 
witness, aware of my accountability to the Searcher 
of hearts, " whose eyes are upon the truth," I shall 
at least make no intentional misrepresentation. No 
oath could add to the solemnity which invests the 
obligation of veracity in my convictions. But if it 
might, " I call God for a record upon my soul " 
that I will not intentionally misstate any thing. I 
however state that I have witnessed from their 
preachers and their people, times without number, 
sentiments, inuendos, implications, and significant 
actions, the whole scope of which was directly to 



309 

degrade the Bible ; and it is my full conviction that 
this is the very genius of their scheme, its native 
and necessary tendency. 

There is an argument of Barclay, which I will 
now consider. As its topic is fundamental, so its 
speciousness is seraphic. It is in substance this : — 
time was when to be led by the Spirit of God was 
thought to define the children of God ; but in our 
age the same characteristic becomes a reproach, and 
even an impeachment of christian piety. As he 
uses scripture to sustain his position, he always 
assumes the very point to be proved. No christian 
will deny that to be led by the Spirit of God is 
essentially indicative of a true christian. Here then 
we are agreed. The only question respects the 
manner in which they are led ! Of this Barclay 
makes no question at all ; but just assumes, as suits 
him, that it is in the very way alone of Friends ! 

He refers here to that memorable saying of Paul, 
Rom. 8 : 14. " For as many as are led by the 
Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." His 
reasoning in the connexion is very convincing, to 
those that follow the inward light, and who count 
it worldly logic to " prove all things and hold fast 
that which is good." But we will hear Barclay. 

"Of old none were ever judged christians, but 
such as had the Spirit of Christ, Rom. 8:9. But 
now many do boldly call themselves Christians, 
who make no difficulty of confessing they are with- 
out it, and laugh at such as say they have it. Of 
old they were accounted the sons of God, who were 
led by the Spirit of God. But how many aver 



31 

themselves sous of God. who know nothing of this 
leader; and he that affirms himself so led. is. by 
the pretended orthodox of this age. presently pro- 
claimed an heretic. The reason hereof is very 
manifest,, viz. Because many in these davs. under 
the name of christians, do experimentally rind, that 
they are not actuated nor led by God's Spirit ; yea, 
many great doctors, divines, teachers and bishops of 
ristianity. commonly so called/ have wholly shut 
their ears from hearing, and their eyes from seeing, 
this iracard guide, and so are become strangers 
unto it: whence they are. by their own experience. 
brought to this strait, either to confess that they 
are as yet ignorant of God., and have only the sha- 
dow of knowledge, and not the true hnoidedge of him. 
or that this knowledge is acquired without imme- 
diate revelation." And this is indispensable to— 
piety ! What inspired extravagance ! A Friend 
may speak and write what he pleases. The above 
is a specimen of Barclay's inspiration and of his 
charitableness ! If his reasoning be correct, then I 
see nor that one soul of us can be saved that deli- 
berately differs with him in the matter of the in- 
icard light! We are not christians, it seems ; we 
are "pretended" orthodox, ignorant of God, not 
sons of God. but graceless persons, whether doc- 
tors, bishops or what not ! Let no man say that I 
lay too much stress on this controversy. A chris- 
tian may well aver that a more ruinous heresy to 
the souls of men could scarcely be invented, by the 
great sire of heresy, than Quakerism ! The dif- 
en it and Christianity is so great, so 



311 

glaring, and yet so relatively concealed, that we 
must take the stand of martyrs, denouncing and 
abhorring it, and that practically reckless of good 
or evil report as the result. Those who see the 
difference are specially bound to be bold in con- 
fessing it ; for the million see nothing but " an an- 
gel of light." 

I make a corollary here of moment — Friends 
mistake the nature and design of all inspiration ; 
especially in viewing it as having for its direct ob- 
ject to inspire our actions ! Now, we know that the 
actions of the apostles were, many of them, as 
men, defective, fallible, wrong ;— of course, not 
inspired. They were to be honored as inspired 
only when orally or scripturally they propounded 
the truth for our knowledge and government. In- 
spired actions make — inspired irresponsibleness, 
which is the character of Quaker inspiration. 
Hence, a preaching Friend is always right ; walks 
in innocency and truth alone ; has nothing to con- 
fess — except that God led and inspired all his ac- 
tions ; and thus morally identifies his agency with 
the divine agency, and finds marvellous peace in 
confessing no sin, having no gratuitous justifica- 
tion, knowing nothing of the way of salvation 
through the death of Christ, and preaching, " ano- 
ther gospel," totally and terribly another, all by in- 
spiration ! 

Barclay in order to avail his argument, ought to 
have shown that there was only one conceivable 
way of being led by the Spirit, and that it was the 
identical way of Friends ! he ought to have shown 



312 

that the Spirit does not lead " the sons of God * 5 
by means of his own word; or, that those who 
follow him in his recorded truth, are recreant to his 
authority, and do not follow him at all ! he ought to 
have shown that Luther, and the noble colleagues 
of the Reformation, were not " sons of God," be- 
cause they were led by the Spirit only through the 
word of God; and that they had the darkness to 
follow Christ in the matter of styling the scriptures 
" the word of God." He ought to have shown that 
the scriptures tell men to go away from their pages 
to find their author ; and that it is not through the 
instrumentality of truth revealed in scripture that 
the Holy Spirit illumines, sanctifies, consoles, and 
perfects, the elect of God. Jesus Christ not only 
resolved the unbelief of the Jews into their prior 
disbelief of the scriptures ; but he denounces them 
as hypocrites, because they lightly esteemed or dis- 
believed " the word of God." Compare John, 5 : 46, 
47, with 8 : 47. " For had ye believed Moses, ye 
would have believed me ; for he wrote of me. But if 
ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my 
words 1 He that is of God, heareth God's words ; 
ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of 
God." Beside, the promise of salvation is made 
to him that believeth the gospel; while christians 
are said to be " born of the word " and " begotten 
of his own will with the word of truth." To this 
we may subjoin, " for as many as are led by the 
Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." 

I here ask the reader to pause and consider the 
execrableness of the grand position of Friends, 



313 

who profess to walk by the Holy Ghost ! by him as 
a rule ; by him immediately, and not by his writ- 
ten instructions! by him, as " a more noble" and 
principal rule in religion ! What is this but the 
darkness and impiety of making God himself a 
rule of action, and that for all men ; their su- 
perlative rule, by which it is in the highest degree 
spiritual to walk in all things! They walk by 
the greater indeed ! I have no words in which to 
express my horror at the sin and folly of the senti- 
ment ! Satan has discovered " a more excellent 
way," in these latter ages, of " sitting in the temple 
of God and showing himself that he is God," since 
Luther identified him in the pontificate and un- 
masked him to the world ! His malignant majesty 
has always manifested a characteristic superiority 
to the word of God, since first he disparaged it to 
the mother of mankind, and " deceived" her with 
the incantation of his argument. He exhibited the 
same cast of character on the throne of the pa- 
pacy : and now among fanatical protestants of all 
sorts, Quakers, Shakers, Mormonites, and what 
not, who desert " the law and the testimony " be- 
cause " there is no light in them," he affects a 
gifted internal autopsy in religion, which, being 
superior to the Bible, renders it superfluous. This 
is one of his rare " devices !" To get rid of the 
law, he pretends to walk by the lawgiver ! To 
supersede the word of God, he makes God himself 
a rule of action ! This truly is (we hope) one of 
his last and rarest inventions : — it may also safely 
be pronounced one of his worst ! He knows its 

40 



314 

million-catching speciousiiess, and has proved its 
value in his modem policy. He will retain it as 
long as he can ! It is however nothing but his most 
holy-looking device to prop a falling cause, and 
elude his tremendous enemy, the tcord of God. 
" Get thee hence, Satan ; for it is written, it is 
written, it is written,'' (thrice, said Jesus,) 
" thou shalt worship the Lord, thy God, and him 
only shalt thou serve ! — thou shalt not tempt the 
Lord, thy God ! — man shall not live by bread 
alone, but by every icord that proceedeth out of the 
mouth of God /" This is the noblest life and the 
noblest food ! 

It is the unique and pervading and master policy 
of hell, and has been from the beginning, to put 
an extinguisher on the light of revelation ; to va- 
cate the holy scripture ; to neutralise the word of 
God. To accomplish this is the central object ; 
no matter by what means, if they will only reach it. 
The means are variable ; the generalship astonish- 
ing ; the resources and expedients endless. Su- 
persede the voice of the authentic "oracles of 
God," and Satan can reign in state and safety. 
The atmosphere of night favors his domain. The 
most specious means are often the most apposite 
and the least suspected. Those which throw a ver- 
bal compliment on the Bible, and seem to reve- 
rence in order the more certainly to destroy its 
authority, are quite eligible. And what delusion 
equal to the spell of Quakerism to effectuate this 
end \ " And Joab said to Amasa, Art thou in 
health, my brother ! And Joab took Amasa by the 



315 

beard with the right hand to kiss him. But Amasa 
took no heed to the sword that was in Joab's hand : 
so he smote him therewith in the fifth rib, and shed 
out his bowels to the ground, and struck him not 
again ; and he died." A left-handed trick ! Many 
such sinister friendships have the foes of truth 
evinced for it. So dies the Bible with the kisses of 
Friends. In this country they are at this day 
mainly — I fear — a community of infidels — only 
they would have us think that they love Christianity. 
The only way in which Friends can elude, with 
any show of consistency, the force of this infer- 
ence — that their superior law is the lawgiver him- 
self, is to deny at once honestly that they are trini- 
tarians, and to deny consequently that the " Spirit 
is God." Otherwise — God is their paramount rule 
of action ! There is no possible escape. I consider 
this dilemma as fair and as conclusive as that to 
which Jesus Christ reduced the Sadducees, when 
they meanly said, "We cannot tell ;" evading the 
premises because they dreaded the conclusion. It 
is this : either the Spirit, in their creed, is not God, 
is a mere impersonal influence or quality — and 
then they deny the trinity, deny their own admis- 
sions and averments, deny their ' orthodox' preten- 
sions, deny every thing but Sabellian or Socinian 
heresy : or, their cardinal principle is one with the 
impious absurdity of making God himself a rule of 
action, " the saints' rule," the highest rule, and so 
forth ! and hence, the only way that even they can 
invent, to detrude the scriptures from their divine 
supremacy or to show a superior rule, is to make 



316 

their eternal Author — a rule ! Let any man of sense 
and principle, who prefers not to swing, gored 
through life, and " his offspring with him," on 
either horn of this bellowing monster, deny him, 
and take the word of God as his highest rule in 
religion, in this world and in that which is to 
come ! The absurdity of the soul of the system, 
the putrid quality of its very heart, is such — but I 
leave the reader, who can, to think that it is not 
among impious absurdities and destructive errors- 
the most confounding and confounded ! 

Monstrum horrendum ! informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum. 

Virg. 

A monster tremendous — misshapen — forlorn — 
Whose fiction of light is the challenge of scorn ! 

III. The fact that all the real knowledge and 
intelligible preaching of Friends are derived from 
the scriptures, demonstrates the non-entity of their 
inward light. 

The thirty-nine books of the Old Testament had 
all been extant for nearly five, and some of them 
for nearly fifteen centuries, before the apostolic 
age. They had been translated into the Greek 
language for three centuries. Christ and his apos- 
ties often quoted them, and always in a style of 
commendation. " The scripture cannot be broken," 
said Christ. He also said, " think not that I am 
come to destroy the law or the prophets ; I am not 
come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto 
you,, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one 



317 

tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be 
fulfilled." The evangelists and .apostles followed 
the example of Christ. They ever revered and 
confirmed the writings of their inspired predeces- 
sors. They reasoned from the sayings of scripture 
as philosophers reason from facts, and mathemati- 
cians from axioms or propositions already demon- 
strated. "What saith the scripture 1 the scripture 
saith ; for it is written ; as saith the prophet ;" were 
their accustomed forms of reference, quotation, and 
proof. This is manly and even sublime. It shows 
that all the long succession of inspired men, from 
Enoch to the apocalyptic angel, who said to John, 
" I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the 
prophets," all the series of so many centuries and 
millenaries of time, were raised up, commissioned, 
and inspired, by the eternal and immutable God. 
It shows that they had a common cause with each 
other and with God ; it shows " the unity of the 
Spirit and the bond of peace." 

But beside this common agreement in doctrine 
and subserviency in object, these two characteristic 
qualities of genuine inspiration are manifest in each 
individual writer ; (1) Each writer is perfectly in- 
dependent of the others. Being equally inspired, 
he could deliver his message for the substance of 
it, if none other had preceded, if none other had 
existed. He quotes the others indeed, and so 
evinces their common unity ; for the cause requires 
it. But this he does comparatively seldom, and 
then obviously more for others than himself. His 
own resources in God are just as ample, compared 



31S 

with his official exigences, as were those of the 
first writer. No man can think concerning one of 
the writers of the New Testament that all his real 
knowledge and intelligible doctrine are servilely 
owing to his acquaintance icith the icriters of the 
Old Testament. If this were the case, his assumed 
inspiration would be suspected or incredible. The 
other characteristic is (2) That in the icriters of 
the New Testament there is a plain moral equa- 
lity m style and efficacy — to say the least of 
them — in those passages which are not quoted, and 
which are largely more abundant, compared with 
those which are quoted from the prophets of a pre- 
ceding dispensation. All proof of this is deemed 
superfluous; otherwise we could refer to the whole 
of the New Testament. 

If this be true of the Sew Testament writers, 
why may we not expect the same in their inspired 
successors and equals of the Society of Friends \ 
Proper inspiration undoubtedly equalizes for the 
time all its genuine subjects. Where all is truth that 
is spoken or written, we cannot say that what one 
uttered is more true than what another uttered by 
the same authority. Consequently the oracles of 
the Quakers are the oracles of God — or, those of 
the apostles are not — or, the inspiration of the 
Quakers is a miserable delusion. 

But is it a delusion ! If it have the two charac- 
teristics above considered, we should be slow to 
conclude against its claims. Has it then those 
characteristics ! Is each inspired preacher, inde- 
pendent, in the sense explained, of his inspired 



319 

predecessors of the Bible 1 And is there equal 
excellence of style and strength in what they speak 
at large, in distinction from what they quote from 
the scriptures 1 Would their sermons make another 
Bible, if they were only collected and printed and 
bound in one book, beginning with Fox and pro- 
ceeding onward to living prophets and prophet- 
esses'? Why not? Is not God as able to inspire 
ignorant persons now as he was aforetime 1 What 
a loss to mankind, that so much inspiration is not 
rescued from oblivion by the labors of stenography 
and stereotyped for the benefit of all coming ages ! 
O Mill, Kennicott, and De Rossi, what a loss! 

We must press the question. Are Friends in- 
debted to inspiration or to the scriptures for all 
they know or intelligibly preach in religion 1 Would 
the inward light have told them of the person, mis- 
sion, name, and glory, of Jesus Christ, or of a 
thousand other topics of truth, if the light of scrip- 
ture had never directly or indirectly shone upon 
them 1 ? If, for the knowledge of these things, as 
far as they possess it, they are wholly indebted to 
scriptural revelation, in common with all their co- 
temporaries, how almost impious the delusion or 
the disingenuousness which affects to derive it 
independently of the written oracles ! whether they 
know it or not, their pretension is a monstrous fal- 
lacy! If they know it not, their ignorance is cri- 
minal and they have no right to be deceived. They 
have amply the means of knowledge; and God 
will call them to a solemn account. " They have 
Moses and the prophets;" they have Christ and 



320 

the apostles. "Let them hear them." Otherwise 
" neither would they be persuaded though one rose 
from the dead." And when they descend to the 
dead or rise in judgment, they will find their sins 
and their excuses classed together, in the indict- 
ment of eternal righteousness against them. 

There is a great variety in the style and copi- 
ousness of their preaching. Some of their preachers 
do not deliver twelve public speeches in as many 
months ; and all of them together would not oc- 
cupy an hour in the delivery. These perhaps never, 
or very seldom, make a scriptural quotation. Some- 
times the recital of a passage constitutes the whole 
sermon. Some preachers are long to unendurable ; 
and their elders have the office of advising them to 
a curtailment of their inspirations. They are all as 
various in the manner of making formal quotations, 
as they are in the time they occupy in preaching. 
In general, they are loose and indefinite in the 
citation of passages. They very often quote what 
is not there, because so said the light within at the 
time. One of their then most eminent preachers, 
on one occasion, in formally arguing with the 
writer, quoted a passage improperly. This was in- 
stantly remarked and the Bible produced, The 
passage was read in its connection (1 Cor. 12 : 7, to 
be considered hereafter) before the company of 
Friends, which was large. The effect was power- 
ful. The preacher, " as he needs must," admitted 
his error. He was admonished to beware of de- 
pending upon misquotation for his arguments and 
upon the light within for his quotations. As he 



321 

quoted the passage, it suited his purpose ; and so 
have I heard it quoted in their solemn public in- 
spirations, and that very frequently ; they quote it 
so, I ween, every month in the year, and found 
their argument on the mistake. But, as the passage 
is written in the text, and especially as the con- 
nection ascertains its meaning, it affords them no 
assistance. The crown of the matter was that a 
year or more afterward, and in company with that 
very same preacher, a professional gentleman and 
one who claims some scholarship in the Latin, 
Greek, and Hebrew languages, himself quoted that 
very passage in his old way to establish his old 
doctrine of the universality of inward light. I re- 
minded him of the circumstance ; remarked on the 
power of habit and the love of theory ; and then 
abandoned this inspired quoter of scripture as an 
incorrigible victim of the inward light. He has 
since, however, abandoned his Quakerism for. the 
allied mysticism of the system of correspondences. 
This is one of a thousand specimens that might be 
afforded. 

One thing is remarkable : — the tenacity and bold- 
ness of Friends in quoting scripture, when they see 
clearly that the passage helps their doctrine. It 
seems probable that if the Bible was found seem- 
ingly to favor their views one tenth part as much 
as it contradicts them, they would soon adopt it as 
their paramount rule in religion. In this they re- 
semble other enemies and corrupters of the truth ; 
who deal in excerpts and detached phrases, instead 
of studying and loving the whole connection ; in- 

41 



322 

stead of believing and adopting the total volume : 
who array one part against others, a few parts 
against many, and individual expressions against 
the universal scope of the word of God ; as if it 
were not all one thing — all equally divine — all 
equally evidenced to be " given by inspiration of 
God." 

I will add, that it has often been sarcastically re- 
marked by some of their own people, that their 
preachers are too much indebted to the phraseology 
of the Bible to be supposed themselves inspired : 
and one very distinguished professional gentleman, 

a Friend, in the city of P a, once affirmed to an 

elder of the meeting, and in the presence of many, 
his own dubitation of their preachers, as follows; 
" I have seen some preachers that we call * hire- 
lings,' who, on acquaintance, appeared to me to be 
men of great intelligence and spirituality." His 
audience seemed astounded. " What!" exclaimed 
the elder, (whose son was a preacher,) " does thee 
mean them that preach for hire 1" Answered the 
other ; " Aye ! and to tell thee more, much that 
comes regularly from our gallery is sheer non- 
sense." I can give names and witnesses, when 
necessary. Thus it is, especially with the more in- 
telligent; many doubt and ridicule their inspired 
communications : — many who will be angry with 
me for thus — in part — exposing a system of spiri- 
tual abuse which themselves certainly know to exist 
in the midst of them. 

IV. My next argument is drawn from the con- 
dition and practice of those nations, tcho, being des- 



323 

iitute of the scripture, but not (on this theory) of 
the inward light, have had nothing to embarrass 
the growth of its natural fruits or mystify their 
qualities. 

The doctrine of the interior light was invented, 
in my opinion, much on the ground of its wonder- 
ful convenience. And who can deny the splendor 
and excellence of the scheme 1 What a grand spi- 
ritual equipment for tartars, hottentots, and all sorts 
of savages ! Every man, the world over, furnished 
with a private supply, an individual vade mecum of 
inspired illumination, " by attending to the moni- 
tions of which" he has all necessary knowledge, 
and especially the riches of salvation ! What could 
the Great Mogul desire or have in all his state, 
more handy or important ? 

The only difficulty of the scheme is that it clashes 
with all evidence, fact, experience, and scripture. 
Like a thousand other " imaginations " that the 
gospel unceremoniously " casts down," there is not 
a particle of truth in its composition. The mon- 
strous ignorance of the pagan nations, their idola- 
try, polytheism, cruelty, pollution, obscenity, and 
perverseness, have been recorded by their own poets, 
orators, and historians ; and the scene has been 
relieved by no evidence of "the principle" in its 
proper fruits, which can be read by eyes that have 
been anointed with " the eye-salve of Christ." Men 
think well of themselves, and of others, when they 
feel a common cause. Hence they are very chari- 
table to human nature in the gross: while their 
" tender mercies " to individuals in the detail are 



324 

" cruel." Just the reverse is true of those who think 
of human nature that it is as bad as the Supreme 
Inspector testifies. 

In proof of the real character of the nations, to 
whom the light of the gospel has not shone, as a 
tremendous but certain matter of fact — not half so 
convenient, it may be, but abundantly more worthy 
of confidence than the opposite theory, I shall ap- 
peal to scripture alone. If they have this light, 
each of them, we are not to expect an omission in 
the total scriptures respecting it ; much less the 
attestation of the absolute contrary. I waive what 
" certain of their own poets have said ;" what Dr. 
Macknight has proved, from the best heathen au- 
thorities, of the dreadful moral degradation of the 
very lights of heathenism themselves, and especially 
of the immorality of Socrates, that darling of po- 
pular infidelity ; I waive the assistance of facts nar- 
rated in the reports of missionaries, who were per- 
sonal observers and eye-witnesses of the enormities 
which they rehearse ; I waive the fact of the current 
testimony of the christian church, of all denomina- 
tions since the Reformation, to the darkened and 
dreadful condition of the heathen nations. 

These sources of proof and many others of 
kindred character, I waive : for, if the Bible is not 
express in omitting or contradicting the statement 
of Friends, I grant that other proofs are insuffi- 
cient or illusory. My first proof is drawn from the 
first chapter of Romans, from the fourteenth verse 
to the end : — in which, if there be such a light in 
all men, as they aver, I am sure that Paul was isr- 



325 

norant of it. He there declares that he wishes to 
preach the gospel to all men, because they need it 
and because he feels benevolently indebted to them, 
to communicate, by preaching or writing, that in- 
valuable blessing. " I am debtor both to the 
Greeks, and to the Barbarians ; both to the wise 
and to the unwise : so, as much as in me is, I am 
ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome 
also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of 
Christ : for it is the power of God unto salvation 
to every one that believeth ; to the Jew first, and 
also to the Greek. For therein is the righteous- 
ness of God revealed from faith to faith ; [or, the 
righteousness of God by faith is revealed to faith ;] 
as it is written, the just shall live by faith ;" or, 
the just by faith, shall live. I now ask, if this is 
not all folly, or at least a most superfluous office 
of the apostle, on supposition of this all-sufficient 
universal inward light 1 Friends believe the gospel 
and this light to be identical ! Why then should 
Paul carry them the gospel, when each one of them 
had it in his own bosom 1 Will Friends say they 
did not know what it was, and needed the presence 
and preaching of an apostle to give them the infor- 
mation 1 What kind of a light then is it 1 What 
good would the sun himself do to the nations, if they 
could not see him without the help of lesser lights, 
as torches, lamps, tapers, matches, fireflies, and 
glow-worms, to aid the vision of a man and teach 
him where to see the sun? And why were not 
forty thousand apostles provided with forty million 
of evangelists to help them, in the work of going 



326 

to every man on the globe and explaining to him 
elaborately the important fact that he had a light 
witkin " by attending to " the monitions of which 
he should learn all he wanted and acquire all he 
needed for this world and the next ! And what is 
the condition of the nations through successive 
ages 1 Do not the moderns need to be told, as 
well as the ancients, of the existence, offices, pro- 
perties, and relations, of this interior light : what 
is their condition then without apostolic monitors 
to help them I What is their condition, even on 
the Quaker scheme, without preaching I But I 
proceed. The apostle then evinces the horribly 
criminal condition of the whole heathen world. 
He says that the light of nature, teaching what they 
never learn, " that which may be known of God " 
from his works, condemns them as sinners and 
leaves them "without excuse." He says; "Pro- 
fessing themselves to be wise," i. e. to have an 
inward light of their own, " they became fools ; and 
changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an 
image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, 
and four-footed beasts, and creeping things." Here 
are some of the rays of the inward light of the 
heathen nations ; some of the precious fruits of 
heathenism ! Quadrupeds, reptiles, vermin, did 
they and their very sages adore, instead of "the 
only wise God." They practised unnatural crime, 
he says ; and that without remorse, being totally 
abandoned of the fear of God. He ends the pic- 
ture with these words ; " And even as they did not 
like to retain God in their knoicledge, God gave 



327 

them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things 
which are not convenient ; being filled with all un- 
righteousness," &c. to the end. 

On the foregoing citation I remark, 1. It con- 
tains a moral estimate of the whole world, as dis- 
tinguished from the Jews ; these he subsequently 
characterizes in the next chapter : and then, in the 
third, asks the question, "Are we better than 
they 1" are the Jews essentially and by nature any 
better than the Gentiles 1 " No ; in no wise ; for we 
have before proved, both Jews and Gentiles, that 
they are all under sin." 2. The picture, of their 
degraded and guilty condition, is given in the ar- 
gument, on purpose to evince their need of having 
the gospel preached to them.. This is obvious. 3. 
The apostle intimates that all the nations once had, 
but voluntarily forewent and forfeited, the know- 
ledge of God. They were all descended from 
Noah. All his sons had the knowledge of the 
true God. But soon, hating, they corrupted and 
lost it. The children imitated and appropriated 
the iniquity of their fathers. Every generation de- 
teriorated. " Their posterity approved their say- 
ings." And what became of their knowledge ? 
The little grew less. The streams of traditionary 
truth were more and more vitiated ; and branching 
into all directions, at last presented the monstrous 
proportions of the common mythology, and the 
abominable usages of universal paganism. Thus 
it was true, historically, individually, philosophical- 
ly, and universally, that "they did not like to retain 
God in their knowledge." I remark, 4. That there 
is not a word said about the inward light ; no 



328 

exception in favor of its influence ; no crimination 
for working its extinction ; no intimation that the 
apostle knew of its existence ! 5. There is no ex- 
ception of individuals. Pythagoras, Socrates, Pla- 
to, Aristotle, all the rare lights of pagan antiquity, 
had then shone upon the darkness : but, it was so 
unrelieved by their lustre, that the apostle lacked 
sight to see or charity to acknowledge or judgment 
to appreciate or inspiration to describe, the unhal- 
lowed and ungenial radiance. Whatever these 
sages were, the gospel, I find, makes little account 
of their lucubrations ; and I wish that many chris- 
tian writers, to say nothing of Friends, had shown 
the wisdom and the modesty toward God to leave 
them peaceably and submissively, where they are 
and where the scripture leaves them, in the hands 
of the Eternal. I have often remembered with 
pleasure an anecdote which I have somewhere 
read and now record. A party in a stage-coach 
were once entertained per force with the sponta- 
neous eloquence of a consequential blood, who 
chose to harangue them on the foolery of the mis- 
sionary cause. At last he came to the dreadful 
implication of the system, that the heathen actu- 
ally need the gospel, and may perish in their sins 
if not brought to repentance and faith in Jesus 
Christ. Here he vociferated, railed, declaimed, 
as if noise must convince where nothing else could 
be commanded — till he seemed exhausted. 

And tamer far for so much fury shown, 
As is the course of rash and fiery men, 
The rude companion smiled, as if transformed. 

COWPEK. 



329 

His fellow passengers bore it well, though some of 
them felt not a little bored with it. At length an 
old gentleman in the rear, who had sat mute and 
unobserved, interposed, as follows : May I ask 
you a question, sir X Certainly. You, sir, and we 
all are not heathen : and worse will it be for us if 
we are not christians. The question is this — Are 
you a true christian ? have you personally a " good 
hope through grace" of everlasting life'? The 
catechumen hesitated. Proceeded the catechist — 
Suffer me then to assure you that, if you should 
ever be so happy as to arrive in heaven yourself, 
which I pray you may, you will find the heathen 
all there too — or, a perfectly satisfactory reason 
for their absence ! 

It is plain that Paul viewed the whole world as 
so wicked and lost, and the gospel as so solely 
competent through God to save, that therefore his 
inspired benevolence desired to bring them the 
outward light of the gospel, and preach to them 
" the unsearchable riches of Christ ;" that so, 
through faith in the testimony and promise of God, 
they might be saved from sin and from the wrath 
to come. This view is not only devoid of the doc- 
trine of Friends, but wholly adverse to it. Other- 
wise, why are not Friends actuated toward the 
heathen world as was Paul 1 Are they charac- 
terized in any way by the love of missions 1 

My next proof is contained in 1 Corinthians, 
chapter 10, verses 20 and 21. "But I say, that the 
things which the nations sacrifice, they sacrifice to 
devils, and not to God : and I would not that ye 

42 



330 

should have fellowship with devils. Ye cannot 
drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils ; ye 
cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the 
table of devils." The anti-quaker phrases of "the 
cup of the Lord," and " the Lord's table," shall 
receive consideration in their place. It is worthy 
of note how Paul's charity disposes of the total 
mass of pagan worship in these verses ! It is all 
offered to devils and not to God ! He makes no 
exceptions, no qualifications, no apologies. How 
plain that either Paul was destitute of inspiration 
or that the nations (and I have substituted the 
word nations for gentiles, as a better translation of 
the original) are in league with the Devil and his 
legions — and that their very w T orship breathes of 
hell! Now where is the inward light? But — not 
to press this question : admit that it exists — it is 
manifestly inefficacious. What good does it ac- 
complish 1 who is purified or enlightened or saved 
by it 1 It might as well not be, since it leaves the 
very religion of its subjects in the service of the 
Devil ! Yet, O ye immortal souls, to whom Friends 
preach, they preach not the gospel to you ! They 
recommend you to the pagan darkness of the in- 
ward light, and turn you away from " the marvel- 
lous light" of "the glorious gospel of the blessed 
God !" Let those of you who have no souls or 
(what is worse) no consciences — practically none, 
continue the blind followers of the blind. Those 
whose eyes are open see " the ditch " into which 
ye will all soon fall together. And O ye " forgers 
of lies, ye are all physicians of no value. O that 



331 

ye would altogether hold your peace ; and it should 
be your wisdom." The blood of souls will be found 
in your skirts, and that by thousands. You are 
not aware exactly of your heavy responsibility to 
God, He has condemned those rash and ignorant 
pretenders to a call from him, who preach " ano- 
ther " and an unknown gospel, "understanding 
neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm." 
I would recommend to you a rational and prayerful 
perusal of the twenty-third chapter of Jeremiah. 

Another argument is drawn from the recognised 
former condition of those saints to whom the apos- 
tolical epistles were written. Says Paul to the 
Corinthians ; " Ye know that ye were gentiles, car- 
ried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were 
led." He says to the Galatians ; " This only would 
I learn of you, received ye the Spirit by the works 
of the law, or by the hearing of faith 1" The 
Quaker answer properly is ; " O foolish Paul ! be 
ashamed of thy ignorance. We receive the Spirit 
neither by the one nor the other. Every man by 
nature, whether heathen, jew, or christian, receives 
a portion of the Spirit of God, without which God 
could not be just, nor man accountable. Dost thou 
think that God could not save his creatures without 
the preaching of thee or any other man? We have 
nobler and more honorable views of the universal 
Father." Plainly Paul thought that saints receive 
the Spirit " by the hearing of faith." With the 
fact alone am I concerned. Other matters I leave 
to Friends. What then was their condition before 
they enjoyed "the hearing of faith'!" Had they 



332 

"the Spirit" then? He reminds the Ephesians 
of their previous state in these words ; " that at 
that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from 
the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from 
the covenants of promise, having no hope, and 
without God in the world." How could all this be, 
on the Quaker theory] In the same letter, he 
says ; " This I say therefore, and testify in the 
Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other gen- 
tiles WALK, IN THE VANITY OF THEIR MIND, having 

the understanding darkened, being alienated from 
the life of God through the ignorance that is in 
them, because of the blindness of their heart. 
Who being past feeling, have given themselves 
over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness 
with greediness." He says to the Thessalonians ; 
" Ye turned to God from idols, to serve the living 
and true God." Says the beloved John, on the 
behalf of the church, his brethren ; " And we know 
that we are of God ; and the whole world lieth in 
wickedness." A thousand other testimonies could 
be added; but it is useless. Where are the fruits 
of the light universal! Did the apostles know? 
They did not. 

But Friends aver that in other passages their 
doctrine is recognised. Is this likely, after reading 
those passages that exclude the possibility of its 
existence ! But I will examine one or two of their 
texts, which they love — mainly because they mis- 
understand them! 

" Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, of a 
truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons ; 



333 

but, in every nation, he that feareth him, and 
worketh righteousness, is accepted with him." Acts, 
10 : 34, 35. If this passage asserted as a fact — 
what it does not — that in every nation there are 
instances of holy men, who, without all knowledge 
of scriptural revelation, are accepted of God ; more 
than this would still be necessary to sustain the 
theory of Friends : it would still be wanting to 
show that the knowledge, by which they wrought 
righteousness, was the result of the universal in- 
ward light. It might be the result of oral preach- 
ing ; it might depend upon special disclosures of 
the Spirit, as that which first warned Abram to 
migrate from Ur of the Chaldees ; it might occur 
as the consequence of patriarchal tradition, like that 
which assisted (at least) the piety of antediluvian 
saints. The passage has no affinity with the doc- 
trine of Friends. It merely asserts the characteristic 
largeness of the new dispensation, in distinction 
from the national bigotry of the Jews. " In short," 
says Dr. Scott, " where the essence of true religion 
is found, God will graciously accept it, without re- 
garding names, forms or sects : — and whatever may 
yet be wanting in explicit knowledge of faith, will 
in due time be communicated." The opposite of 
the text is that a man who had heard of salvation, 
who had long resided among the people of God, who 
believed the scriptures, and was sincerely devout, 
could not be accepted, because he was by nativity an 
uncircumcised Roman : this the Jews believed, and 
with a violence that was perfectly inexorable. 

The facts that circumcision was abolished and 



334 

that the nations were to be admitted " fellow-heirs, 
and of the same body, and partakers of his promise 
in Christ by the gospel," as distinguishing the 
new economy, were incredible to. the Jews and at 
first even to the apostles themselves. This was the 
first instance, and Cornelius and his household 
were the first fruits, of apostolic preaching to the 
Gentiles. It required a miracle, a divine vision 
thrice repeated at Joppa, to convince Peter of the 
will of God, in this grand relation. Nothing less 
could break the spell of his Jewish prejudices ; 
which were almost as strong as those of Friends 
against what they choose to call " a hireling minis- 
try." When he journeyed, in obedience to the 
order of God, from Joppa to Cesarea, " certain bre- 
thren from Joppa accompanied him." These had 
not seen his vision, and hence "what God had 
cleansed, that called they common." They would 
doubtless report his uncanonical administration on 
their return. Peter was afterward put to trial on 
this very ground. When he " was come up to Je- 
rusalem, they that were of the circumcision con- 
tended with him, saying, thou wentest in to men 
uncircumcised, and didst eat with them. But Peter 
rehearsed the matter from the beginning, and ex- 
pounded it by order unto them." Hence it is evi- 
dent that this passage respects the Jewish, but has 
no relation to the Quaker controversy. I remark a 
few particulars. 1. Cornelius, though a native Ro- 
man, was an inhabitant of Palestine. He lived in 
Cesarea, which was nearer to Jerusalem than was 
Nazareth, where Christ was educated. He was 



335 

doubtless acquainted with the Old Testament scrip- 
tares, with the worship of the synagogue, and the 
persons of the Jews. Though he held a military 
commission (a case where piety and soldiership 
combine) under the Roman Emperor, he appears 
so to have conducted as to win the universal ap- 
probation of the Jews ; and he had been quartered 
at Cesarea most probably for years. Thus he was 
a religious man long before Peter's visit ; though 
very imperfect in his knowledge. The historical 
facts of Messiah's advent he had not then learned. 
He " was of good report among all the nation of 
the Jews." 2. That " God is no respecter of per- 
sons " is an elemental truth that refers to his judi- 
cial character alone. His providential administra- 
tion — his eternal sovereignty is not considered : it 
is only affirmed that as a judge he will be impar- 
tial, deciding according to facts and evidence ; 
he will not accept or condemn a man, Jew or 
Greek, because of national characteristics. 5. The 
ministry of the gospel, and not the inward light, 
nor even the ministry of angels, did God employ 
to " preach peace by Jesus Christ" to this converted 
heathen and " perfect that which was lacking in his 
faith." The ministry of angels was employed to 
prepare the way for the nobler or better adapted 
service of an apostle preaching the gospel. Cor- 
nelius " saw an angel in his house, who stood 
and said unto him, send men to Joppa, and call for 
Simon, whose surname is Peter ; tvho shall tell thee 

ZCOrds WHEREBY THOU AND ALL THY HOUSE SHALL 

be saved." What need of all this on the principle 



336 

of Friends ? 4. This holy centurion and his fa- 
mily were taught, what Friends had been slow to 
learn. After the sermon, said Peter, "Can any 
man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, 
who have received the Holy Ghost as well as wel 
And he commanded them to be baptized in the 
name of the Lord." Truly it was not the light 
within that predominated in the speaker or hearers : 
otherwise the question had been, " Why not forbid 
water? having the substance, what need of the 
sign 1 Having the Holy Ghost, what need of water !" 
What need 1 " Thus it BECOMETH US to 
fulfil all righteousness." What need is there of 
doing the will of God ! I just add, 5. That the in- 
troductory words, " then Peter opened his mouth 
and said," are not to be regarded as a mere ple- 
onasm. They refer to his critical and novel situa- 
tion. He had been meditating on the import of 
the vision. His sensations were, no doubt, inde- 
scribably strong. But he kept it all a secret till 
the proper opportunity. Then he boldly, as well 
as promptly, divulged it ; he " opened his mouth " 
and spoke the unwonted and glorious truth. 

" After this I beheld, and lo, a great multitude, 
which no -man could number, of all nations, and 
kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before 
the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with 
white robes, and palms in their hands ; and cried 
with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God, 
who sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb." 
Rev. 7 : 9, 10. From this text, and others of 
which this is a specimen, Friends infer that there 



337 

are pious and holy people among all nations ; that 
they become such by attention to the inward light 
and not by outward means ; and consequently that 
their whole system is proved. But surely their in- 
ferences are too rapid to be sound. Not a word 
is said about the manner of their becoming pious ; 
and why then have we not an equal right to infer 
that the rule, faith cometh by hearing and hearing 
by the word of God, was as really true in their case 
as in other cases 1 There is at best no proof in 
such texts in favor of Friends. Beside, it occurs 
in a connection of prophecy. Events, then future 
to the writer, were predicted. These events were 
the conversion of hundreds to the faith of Christ, 
who were " sealed in their foreheads as the ser- 
vants of God." Whatever may be meant by the 
process of sealing, if we are to judge of this by 
other instances of which we are informed, we 
should say the gospel was preached to them ; they 
believed it ; they professed the religion of Christ, 
were baptized, and accepted, " as heirs together 
of the grace of life." It is moreover a scene which 
occurs properly on the earth, though it respects the 
heavenly state ; as by the rapid associations of 
prophecy, the two are often exchanged and often 
mingled also in the description. If however it is 
destitute of all proof of that which it was brought 
to prove, we must search for other texts which bear 
upon the question, How do sinners become pious ? 
Whatever we may allow for possibilities in the 
divine administration, there is no known or re- 
vealed ' METHOD OF SALVATION OTHER THAN THAT 

43 



338 

WHICH IS BY FAITH IN THE GOSPEL OF JESUS 

Christ ! The gospel had been preached through- 
out the whole world, before the book of Revelation 
was written. Missionary efforts were made in after 
ages, especially in the next century. The book 
itself sublimely and often predicts the spread of the 
gospel as the means of salvation : and I know of 
no necessity or reason for the inference, from that 
text or any other in the Bible, that men are saved 
without the gospel. 

The propagation of the gospel in the first ages, 
constitutes one of the most wonderful prodigies in 
human history ; whether we consider the obstacles 
that were overcome, the victories that were accom- 
plished, the means used, the space occupied and 
filled with its radiance, or its lasting and magnifi- 
cent results as related to the future and the present 
world. Viewed with accuracy and comprehensive- 
ness, it remains itself a demonstration of the di- 
vinity OF THE GOSPEL AND THE SUCCORS OF GOD IN 

its promulgation, which infidelity can never an- 
swer or candor disallow. The passage in Colos- 
sians, 1 : 23, (compare 6,) which Barclay translates 
and interprets, as if it meant to teach his thesis of 
" universal and saving light" suffocating "in every 
creature that is under heaven," as if it meant " that 
little small thing" and so forth, means demonstra- 
bly no more than the vast and astonishing diffusion 
of the gospel, by preaching, even in the first thirty 
years after the crucifixion of its glorious Author. 
It were better thus rendered : " Not removed from 
the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, which 



339 

hath been preached (xyipvxdevtog ev 7taa^ *$ xtiaei 
TTyj vno rov ovpavov) in all creation that is under 
heaven ; and of which I Paul am made a minister." 
Another specimen this of what it seems the voca- 
tion of inward light to do ! How anti-spiritual, 
how gross, how prevaricating, is such a light! I 
could easily write another treatise of corrections, 
rescuing the true meaning of a multitude of pas- 
sages from the profane and audacious glossings 
of a pseudo-inspiration. We pass to consider, 

V. The missionary practice of the apostles,, 
in carrying the gospel to distant nations and 
preaching it to all the world, as if the gospel so 
preached, and not any interior light, was to be the 
instrument of " salvation to every one that believeth" 

Actions speak louder than words, as saith the 
proverb of the ancients ; and in reference to the 
meaning of the apostles, if we can ascertain their 
official conduct, the result should be conclusive. 
How then did they understand the kingdom of 
heaven in this respect! The same criterion might 
aid our investigation of other points. Were they 
Quakers'! Did they think, and act, and look, and 
preach, like Friends 1 How did they act ; what 
was their common usage in reference to the hea- 
then world ] I answer, they viewed it as full of 
condemned sinners, who could be saved by the gospel 
through faith, and in that way alone; and they 
accordingly acted toward them, inculcating both by 
their preaching and practice the solemn duty of 
Christendom, and especially of the church, to dif- 
fuse the light of the gospel, mainly by preaching, 
throughout the whole family of nations. 



340 

If this be true, is the light of Friends true 1 If 
it be, why are they not actuated toward the nations 
as the apostles were ! why do they oppose mis- 
sions I why lend so feeble and so ambiguous an 
aid at best to the noble evangelical charities of the 
day] why not favor Bible societies and all kindred 
institutions, with their personal and pecuniary in- 
fluence 1 I know there are a few — very few — la- 
mentably few — exceptions ! But look at the society 
at large. The frost of stagnation hath settled on 
their energies and the winter of stoicism hath frozen 
all its depths ! If the apostles had acted as they do 
(and that not in one respect alone) Christianity had 
never been propagated among the nations ! 

From the commencement of the Acts of the 
Apostles to the end of .the inspired canon, com- 
prising twenty-three distinct original volumes, we 
have a continual history of the missionary prac- 
tice of the apostles. Not only in person did they 
travel and preach, but they encouraged and pre- 
pared others, evangelists and preachers, to go forth, 
fulfilling that ancient prophecy ; " The Lord gave 
the word; great was the company of them that 
published it." So many and so " mighty through 
God " were these heralds of the cross, that the pro- 
pagation of Christianity in the first ages remains 
to this day a wonder of divine achievement. It 
is unparalleled in the pages of universal history. 
The whole Roman empire felt the vital shock of 
the gospel, circulating, like the tide of life in the 
human frame, from the centre to the extremities. 
When Paul wrote his glorious epistle to the Ro- 



341 

mans he had indeed never visited that proud me- 
tropolis, though his pilgrim labors had filled the 
world, in almost every other direction, with the 
renown of his Master. He says to the Romans, 
" from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum, 
I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. Yea, 
so have I strived to preach the gospel, not where 
Christ was named, lest I should build upon another 
man's foundation ; but as it is written," &c. — 
15 : 19-25. We know that many others, though 
less eminent, were engaged in the same identical 
cause. And here we see the instrumentalities 
which God from the beginning employed to propa- 
gate the gospel ; and which, through his blessing, 
were astonishingly successful. " Within about thirty 
years after our Lord's death, the gospel was spread, 
not only throughout almost all parts of the Roman 
empire, but even to Parthia and India." Pliny to 
Trajan complains of the ascendant influence of 
the superstition, as he calls it, and of the conse- 
quent desolations of heathenism. Tacitus speaks 
of an ingens multitudo, a huge multitude of chris- 
tians, in the city of Rome in the time of Nero. 
Thus onward proceeded this kingdom of the High- 
est, till it speedily included the whole Roman 
empire, with the Emperor himself, not only in its 
territory, but nominally at least in its bosom. Could 
Quakerism thus have moved a world 1 What — by 
inward light, passivity, and silent meetings 1 

That they must have thus labored to evangelize 
the nations is further evident from the tenor of their 
commission, " Go ye therefore," &c. Matt. 28 : 



342 

18-20, and Mark, 16: 15, 16. On these words 
allow a few remarks. (1) The commission was 
designed to be (and therefore is) of permanent 
authority in the church. This might be argued 
from many considerations ; we infer it here simply 
from the promise ; " Lo, I am with you alway 
even unto the end of the world." This could not 
apply to the apostles, or to the men of any one 
generation, exclusively. True, the apostles as such 
had no successors, no predecessors, no equals, no 
official similars. As preachers, however, they are 
comparatively common — they are at the head of a 
long succession of faithful ministers of the cross 
of an atoning Savior, from whom each derived his 
tantamount authority. This shows the permanent 
constitution of the gospel, and infers the perma- 
nent wants of men, as well as the permanent duty 
of the church. (2) The original word rendered 
preach is taken from the office of a commissioned 
town crier, who makes proclamation aloud with 
the authority of the commonwealth, and arrests 
the attention of all to his message. In this way 
is the order to preach the gospel in all the world 
and lo every creature. Not a word in the commis- 
sion about the light within ! 

The word teach means to instruct by oral incul- 
cation ; and thus to preach and teach the gospel to 
mankind is the sum of this stupendous order, that 
remains to this day binding, directly or indirectly — 
binding in its spirit on every human being to whom 
it comes, greeting. It is an order to diffuse the 
truth of the gospel, to propagate Christianity ; a 



343 

work of the King's commandment, in which every 
subject of his realm is bound to be aiding and 
assisting ; and at least to give it his blessing and 
his prayers. The age in which we live is begin- 
ning to awake to this business. One third of the 
present century has gone, the brightest since the 
Reformation, with the light of the angel's pinions, 
" flying in the midst of heaven, having the ever- 
lasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on 
the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and 
tongue, and people." Here we see the appointed 
means of the conversion of the world. Luke, 10: 
1, 2. The scriptures are to be translated into all 
the languages of the peopled earth ; missionaries 
are to go forth by thousands ; like candles unlight- 
ed, though distributed in a large house, the Jewish 
manuscripts of " Moses and the Prophets " (in 
every synagogue under heaven,) are to be touched 
and lighted with the torch of Christianity, kindling 
a thousand central fires throughput the world, but 
shedding one sole light upon the darkness of its 
inhabitants. But I digress. (3) We see the duty 
of all who hear the gospel — to believe it, to learn 
it, to love it, and practise it to the glory of God. 
(4) The sanctions of the preached gospel are at 
once ultimate and tremendous : they are salvation 
to the believer, damnation to the infidel ; and no 
alternative ! It contains no apology for harshness, 
no compromise, no ceremony, no respect of per- 
sons, no double dealing, no concealment. Let the 
world tremble — rather let the world obey! (5) 
There is nothing mystical, or even figurative, in 



344 

all this high concern of truth and destiny. It is 
all intelligible. The meaning of every word is 
plain. It is marked with " truth and soberness." 
No enthusiasm, no weakness, no artifice, appears ; 
but the signals of mercy and majesty divine ! How 
totally unlike Quakerism ! My last remark is (6) 
that the gospel so propagated is alone recognised 
as the grand instrument of salvation. As it in- 
volves no uncertainty, we know that by this men 
may be saved ; for so says Jesus Christ. Can we 
know as much of inward light I V He that be- 
lie veth and is baptized, shall be saved.*' He that 
minds the inward light — stay ! is that in the com- 
mission 1 That instrument of God is a manifesto 
of duty to the world, as well as a charter of office 
to the ministry ! Whatever we may guess, or 
" Friends believe " about the inward light, what 
divine certificate have we for any thing but faith in 
the simple gospel ! 

All the history we have in the case shows that 
the apostles understood this commission just as we 
do. Their practice is a commentary which verbal 
criticism cannot corrupt, nor any thing but infatua- 
tion resist. The light within may clearly see some- 
what different, since covetousness and sensuality 
see the same thing. But genuine piety. listens to 
declarations such as these : " For the preaching of 
the cross is to them that perish, foolishness ; but 
unto us who are saved, it is the power of God. 
For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of \ the 
wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding 
of the prudent. Where is the wisel where is the 



345 

scribe ? where is the disputer of this world ? hath 
not God made foolish the wisdom of this world 1 
For after that in the wisdom of God the world by 
wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the 
foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. 
For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek 
after wisdom : but we preach Christ crucified, unto 
the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks 
foolishness ; but unto them which are called, both 
Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and 
the wisdom of God." 1 Cor. 1 : 18-24. Besides, 
we have a standing order for the recruiting of the 
ministry to the end of the world. 2 Tim. 2 : 2. 

I only ask any man of sense to tell me, in view 
of all this, what are ice to think of the inward 
light 1 of that inspired sanctimony which denounces 
all this structure of God, as prosecuted " in the will 
of the creature" and as a system of will worship 
and idolatry ? " Wo unto them that call evil good, 
and good evil ; that put darkness for light, and light 
for darkness ; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet 
for bitter. Wo unto them that are wise in their 
own eyes, and prudent in their own sight." Is. 
5: 20,21. 

A correct view of the commission, work, impor- 
tance, and ends, of the evangelical ministry, might 
revolution the mind of any Friend, in respect to 
the distinctness and dignity of the ministerial or- 
der : and he who reads the scripture with an eye 
critically awake to the subject, will see how the 
total scope of the book of God differs from the 

44 



346 

total scope of Quakerism : what I have given un- 
der this head, or indeed elsewhere, is more an ex- 
hibition of principles and specimens than a full 
synopsis of the subject. 

VI. The character of apostolic preaching, 

AND ALSO OF HIS WHO COMMISSIONED AND PRECEDED 

the apostles, is icondevfulhj destitute of all force 
and propriety, in respect to the doctrine of in- 
ward light, if that doctrine be true. 

That these all preached the doctrine of the per- 
son and office-work of the Holy Ghost, as vital to 
all saving knowledge of God, is a momentous and 
indisputable fact. Xo man believes this fact per- 
haps more really than I do. It is the catholic faith 
of protestants : and he is no christian who doubts 
or denies it. Let not Friends assume that I am 
opposed to the scripture doctrine of that important 
article of the creed of all saints ; because I distin- 
guish it from their doctrine which I consider not 
scriptural at all : — for, I believe the Quaker spirit 
to be another spirit, the Quaker influence another 
influence, and the Quaker doctrine another doc- 
trine. 

It seems necessary, as I wish neither to deal in 
negatives nor to become voluminous with positives 
in this treatise, to give a statement of what 2" con- 
sider the catholic doctrine on this subject — the im- 
portance of which can scarcely be exceeded. Here 
also I wish to commit no individual or denomina- 
tion for my views of the catholic doctrine. If I show 
a very different doctrine from that of Friends, then 
the reader has only to " search the scriptures :" and 



347 

if he finds it there in substance as here represented, 
he will be at no loss to account for the zeal mani- 
fested in these pages against its placid counterfeit. 
Perhaps also some scriptural evidence accompany- 
ing the statement may aid his conviction of the 
truth. It will be impossible, however, within the 
allotted space, to adduce th*e full proof of every 
position ; nor will an approximation to this be at- 
tempted. 

That the Spirit of God has a mighty and uncom- 
puted agency in preparing the church for glory and 
eternally sustaining them in that sublime fruition ; 
and that this agency is substantially the same in 
all ages of the world — from Abel to the last ran- 
somed soul before " the coming of the day of God, 
wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dis- 
solved, and the elements shall melt with fervent 
heat ;" are positions of sacred and evincible truth. 
But the Spirit has done many things without us, 
as well as in us ; and many preliminary, as well as 
consummate ; and circumstantial, as well as vital, 
in effectuating the salvation of men. All his in- 
fluences, however, are necessary in their place ; nor 
does it accord with his perfect wisdom to do any 
thing in vain or any thing superfluous. By his in- 
fluences I mean all that he does, in whatever aspect, 
in accomplishing the salvation of the saved : a cor- 
rect view of which affords at once the theory and 
the vindication of those blessings of salvation, 
called, somewhat technically, revivals of reli- 
gion. 

These influences I distinguish into two great 



348 

classes as ordinary and miraculous ; of which 
inversely : 

First, miraculous influences. Under this head I 
comprehend all extraordinary influences, whether 
formally miraculous or not ; as his agency in crea- 
tion, in providence and in the ancient church ; his 
plenary revealing iiffluence, in all the " holy men 
of God " by whom the scriptures were written for 
the benefit of the world ; his influences strictly 
miraculous in the first ages of the Jewish and the 
christian church ; particularly of the latter, when 
the preachers of the gospel, introducing Christianity 
and planting it, in a world of ignorance and hos- 
tility unallayed with better qualities, "went forth, 
and preached every where, the Lord working with 
them, and confirming the word with signs follow- 
ing — God also bearing them witness, both with 
signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and 
gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will ;" 
and his suggestive influences, in many merely oral 
communications of his prophets and apostles, occa- 
sional or regular, public or personal, brief or ex- 
tended, for purposes more partial and temporary 
than what was ordered to be written for coming 
generations. Of these influences, called miraculous, 
I would observe (1) that they are all gifts and not 
graces, all helps and not parts, all auxiliaries and 
not constituents, of vital religion. A man may have 
inspiration and work miracles, and be " a devil,'-' as 
were Judas and others : because he may know and 
experience all these things, and never love God or 
forsake sin, or have one good motive. Piety does 



349 

not consist in being inspired or working a miracle ; 
but in obeying the gospel, departing from iniquity, 
and practising the will of God. 51 How would the 
opposite, or the doctrine of Friends, affect us, re- 
duced to the simple proposition ; Except a man be- 
comes inspired, as the prophets and apostles were, he 
cannot be saved! This however is the doctrine of 
Barclay, as I shall hereafter show. More to evince 
the absurdity of the position, let us alter it, thus ; 
Except a man have the gift of miracles and of lan- 
guages, as the apostles had on the day ofpentecost, 
he cannot be saved, I observe (2) that all the mira- 
culous influences, as they are distinct, so are they 
all subservient to the ordinary influences, and of 
ultimate worth only as related to the triumphs of 
truth and holiness. Miracles and inspiration are to 
piety just what scaffolding is to a building or husks 
to growing corn : — of no utility after their end is ac- 
complished. Miracles however are still of use to 
us ; established by testimony and vindicated by 
rational evidence, all ages, since the last one was 
performed, may be certified of their verity ; may 
infer the truth of the system which they were given 
to authenticate ; and enjoy in thought and feeling 
(not in sense) all the moral advantage of the whole 
series from the beginning ; this their noblest benefit 
and end. If they were thus subsidiary to the more 
noiseless, less ostentatious, untransitory influences, 
called ordinary, then (3) w e ought to value and 
expect the ordinary influences, as at once attaina- 
ble by all, and infinitely more profitable to 
their possessors, than the extraordinary and mi- 



350 

raculous influences. These one might have and — 
perish ; those to have, is to be saved — if the degree 
involve holiness of heart ! I observe (4) that whate- 
ver tends to error in this relation, by leading men 
to substitute the latter for the former, to prefer 
gifts to graces, and miracles to mercies, and in- 
spiration to a moral change of the affections, 
tends equally to deceive and ruin the soul ; tends 
to make zealots and fools instead of saints and 
christians ; tends to fascinate the immortal mind 
with nonsense and to plunge it into death. Once 
more (5) there is no evidence either of the necessity 
or the reality of miraculous influences since the 
apostle's day, nor of one instance of proper in- 
spiration since the death of the beloved John. 
Where is there any utility of such influences 1 
Cessante causa, cessat res, the effect ceases with 
its cause. The power of miracles continued and 
permanent, is at once the claim and the stigma of 
antichrist. 2 Thes. 2 : 9, 10. And why is there 
not just as much evidence of miracles, as of inspi- 
ration, continued 1 Friends strangely separate, what 
God has generally joined; and are — of late — quite 
as remarkable for declining to work miracles as for 
professing to be inspired. O that they would learn to 
" refuse profane and old wives' fables, and exercise 
themselves rather unto godliness !" Otherwise, it 
will be their doom, as it is their history, to " turn 
away their ears from the truth, and be turned 
unto fables." " And we know that all things work 
together for good, to them that love God, [whether 
inspired or not,] to them who are the called accord- 



351 

ing to his purpose ;" and these are identified with 
them that love God. 

Secondly, I come now to speak of the ordinary 
influences of the Holy Spirit. By these I mean all 
those influences by which the mind is enlightened, 
convinced, converted, sanctified, comforted, sus- 
tained, actuated in obedience, edified in faith, ex- 
panded with benevolence, martialed in duty, and 
matured for heaven ; as also those that eternally 
glorify the being of saints, and make their ever- 
lasting conservation in blessedness to be infallible. 
These I suppose are substantially the same in 
every age, vitally and totally necessary to salvation. 
I however subdivide them into objective and sub- 
jective. 

Objective ordinary influences. By these I 
mean those influences of the Spirit in which the 
objects of religion are afforded to the mind as 
the occasions and moral causes of devout affection 
and the stamina of usefulness in the world. Of 
these I shall make some observations at the com- 
mencement of successive paragraphs. 

(1) These influences are all exerted through 
the instrumentality of truth alone, from 
ichatever medium accepted by the mind; — whe- 
ther that medium be at the time the volume of God's 
blessed and luminous word ; or the mighty works 
of his hand ; or the senses in any way conveying it 
to the thoughts ; as preaching heard, or the sacra- 
ments seen, or pious example witnessed, or the ap- 
peal of providential events of joy or grief consi- 
dered, or — to one who knows the general truth— 



352 

" night visions may befriend n and dreams help us 
awake. 2 Cor. 3 : 8, 11, 12, 18. In a word, God 
may use almost any means to bring the truth into 
Jiving contact with the mind. 

(2) All truth, that savingly influences, is derived, 
since the first ages of Christianity, from the volume 
of scripture alone ; and that directly or indirectly, 
immediately or remotely, formally or virtually : so 
that but for the scriptures, ice should be sunk in the 
profane barbarism and stupid idolatry of the hea- 
then nations. Rom. 15 : 4. Prov. 29 : 18. John. 
17:17, 19, 20. Eph. 6:17. James, 1 : 18, 21, 
22. 1 Pet. 1 : 22-25. Rom. 3 : 1, 2. 1 Thes. 
4 : 5. There are other passages innumerable to 
to the same point. These however rnav suffice. 

(3) The grand manner in ordinary of truth's 
access savingly to the mind, is through preaching; 
when the Spirit speeds the progress of his own truth 
to the latent " springs and principles'' of the jnitid ; 
not by altering the truth ; but by so presenting it to 
the mind as to give the truth u free course " and 
efficacy through all its faculties. The truth, being 
right, needs not the Spirit to convert or improve it ; 
or to give it life, being itself " quick and powerful ;"' 
but the mind needs to be arrested, awakened, trans- 
formed, through the truth, to perceive and love and 
pursue the glorious objects of religion, the fixed 
stars of the eternal firmament. 1 Thes. 1 : 5-7; 
2 : 13. 2 Thes. 2 : 11-14. Whence we pass to treat, 

2. Of subjective ordinary influences. By these 
I mean all the influences of the Spirit on the sub- 
jects or men ichom he affects, bringing them to con- 



353 

sider, seek religion, repent, obey, worship, believe, 
practise holiness, and persevere to life everlasting; 
including awakening, conviction, regeneration, sanc- 
tiflcation, consolation, universal piety, and ultimate 
salvation. 

I call these subjective, because men are the sub- 
jects of them, and because they are considered dis- 
tinctly with respect to the subjects themselves. I 
call them the influences of the Spirit, because they 
are virtually so denominated in the word of God ; 
and because he is the Grand Agent who produces 
them and is immediately glorified in them ; since 
all these belong to his revealed office-work. Of 
these I remark, 

(1) That the true order in our consideration of 
them is, that objective precede subjective influ- 
ences ; and not the contrary. Give to subjective 
influences the precedency, and you have made an 
inlet to all the enthusiasm, spiritual pride, and spe- 
cious sin, that ever spurned the scriptures, hated 
order, violated purity, misrepresented truth, de- 
graded religion, glorified blundering ignorance, and 
scandalized the souls of men. In such an inver- 
sion knowledge is despised as infamous and Satan 
enthroned in his celestial disguises. This is, no 
doubt, the philosophy of all religious wild-fire and 
spiritual extravagance, and pious ill manners, and 
spurious illumination. Thus men learn to worship 
their own experiences, to deify their feelings, and 
to follow every imagination as the voice of God. 
I am sorry to record that real christians, and even 
christian ministers, are sometimes carried away — in 

45 



354 

degree — with this lawless influence. The weak- 
ness of the human mind, the infinite themes of re- 
ligion, the infirmity of faith, opinionated ignorance, 
silly credulity, the arts of false teachers, the stimu- 
lus of a solemn occasion, spiritual pride, the deceit- 
fulness of the heart, officious and erring counsellors, 
and the devices of the devil, are the proper causes, 
as the scriptures are only the innocent occasions of 
all these scandals : which however may be resolved 
into a principle which is in fact digested into the 
creed of Friends and made the focal point of all 
their religion ; that principle is the precedency of 
subjective influences ! I believe that this was the pre- 
cise inspiration of that lustrous son of moonshine. 
George Fox. Whether he had piety or not beside, is 
another question — and I leave it to him who knows. 
Thus I do of all Friends, wishing their salvation. 
I attack their tenets, not them. To be sure, they 
are very much identified with their tenets ; but this 
is not my fault : — I wish they were more than the 
moon's distance apart ! But to return. Give to ob- 
jective influences the precedency ; and then subjec- 
tive follow in their place, and all is order, symmetry 
and wisdom : the feelings are made to honor then- 
proper sphere in subordination to truth ; the intel- 
lect is " exercised to discern both good and evil ;" 
the whole moral manhood is subjected to " the 
glorious gospel of the blessed God ;" and the sub- 
ject learns to " be ready always to give an answer 
to every man that asketh him a reason of the hope 
that is in him, with meekness and fear." 1 Peter, 
3 : 15. I observe further — 



355 

(2) Subjective influences are never to he con- 
sidered genuine but as they may be seen to corres- 
pond with objective. This result need not be 
always immediate, formal or known, in order to be 
real. We cannot conceive of gospel holiness but 
as the counterpart of truth. Holiness is the image 
of God ; and divine truth is the royal stamp on 
which that image is cut, and which the Spirit uses 
as the universal instrument of all his own impres- 
sions. However he may melt or soften or prepare 
the mass, before he coins it into heavenly currency, 
it never gets the king's " image and superscription," 
till that unrivaled signet imparts it by the power of 
the Spirit of God. I venture to translate Rom. 
6 : 17, more as it ought to be, in favor of this view. 
" But God be thanked that ye are not, though ye 
were, the servants of sin ; seeing ye have obeyed 
from the heart that mould of doctrine into which 
ye were cast." It is elsewhere said ; " so we preach, 
and so ye believed." And again we read of others 
" that perish, because they received not the love of 
the truth, that they might be saved." Says John, 
" We are of God. He that knoweth God, heareth 
us ; and he that is not of God, heareth not us. 
Hereby know we the spirit of truth and the spirit 
of error." 

(3) The mode of subjective operation, essen- 
tially considered, is equally inscrutable and unim- 
portant. " How can these things be 1" How does 
the Spirit reach, open, impress, and actuate the 
mind, so that now the same things engross and 
enrapture it which once were insipid and even re- 



356 

pulsivet What wheel has he touched, what cord 
relaxed, what veil removed ! We only know the 
fact that he does, not the mode how he does, the 
glorious wonder. A wise man, who knows the 
rational horizon of the mind, and can see to the 
boundaries of human intelligence, in rebus — certi 
denique fines, confesses his total ignorance, where 
fools luxuriate in the pride of knowledge. Acts, 
16 : 14. John, 3 : 8. Col. 2 : 18. This difficulty, 
though practically it has no existence, resolves it- 
self ultimately into the inscrutable mode of a most 
palpable fact — the necessary and absolute depen- 
dence of a created moral agent. 

(4) The all-imjjortant matter is the result of 
these influences. The process is valuable only for 
the sake of the result. This is the grand deside- 
ratum in self-examination. Whatever influence, 
otherwise definable or not, brings its subject to 
evangelical results, in thought, motive, conduct ; 
that influence is to be ascribed to the Spirit of God. 
Hence the criteria of discrimination that abound in 
the sacred volume. Hence the results described 
in such passages as the following ; " the fruit of 
the Spirit is love, joy, peace,'' &c. Gal. 5 : 22-24. 
Eph. 5:9. 1 Cor. 12 : 5. Observe, how totally 
devoid of all extravagance are these texts ! There 
are thousands more in the Bible of the same kind. 
It is plain then if a man love God, if he really love 
him, if it be a fact that he lores God, that man is 
a christian and will be saved, whether he can give 
the history of the affection or not. " Believest thou 
this," O reader? " Lovest thou me!" 



357 

(5) The subjects are conscious alone of the ob- 
jective influence; while, by faith only, and not by 
feeling, they ascribe it to the Spirit. I mean by 
this that a man is conscious of the agent, only 
through the instrument ; or, he is solely conscious 
of the action of truth on his powers and of his 
own mental exercises and acts in view of truth ; 
and is in no other way conscious (or "sensible" as 
Friends say) of the influence of the Spirit. Psalm 
55 : 5. Acts, 9 : 5. Heb. 4 : 12. Psalm 19 : 7. 
John, 14 : 22, 23. The fancy of an immediate 
consciousness of the Spirit evades every rational 
criterion, and is most probably all delusion and ma- 
terialism : — beside, its result is generally mystical 
or corrupt or ambiguous. 

(6) The forms, reasons, circumstances, and de- 
grees of influences, perpetually vary, not only in 
different subjects, but at different times in the same 
subject ; nor may any form or style be prescribed 
as a standard of genuineness, since nothing must 
supersede the rule of judging by the result. " By 
their fruits " alone, may the children of God be 
discriminated; and this according to the rule of 
the written word. The history therefore of the 
mode and order of their experiences is at best of 
very subordinate importance. 1 Cor. 12 : 6. Phil. 
3: 13. Heb. 10: 32. 

(7) The tchole economy of these influences, as 
of any others, depends supremely on the sovereign 
pleasure of "the only wise God." I mean by 
this not to exclude human agency or accountability 
from their proper place and mediate influence in 



358 

the event ; nor to favor any notion of fatality, or 
destiny independent of the voluntary conduct of 
men ; but I do mean to deny the existence of ab- 
solute chance, and to put the event, in common 
with all other events, in the sovereign arbitration 
of God. I mean to deny the Arminian view 
which enthrones eternal chance and exalts the 
autocrasy of the creature " above all that is called 
God, or that is worshipped ;" and puts the Creator 
in a posture of waiting ignorance or sincere dis- 
comfiture, rather than of dominion " over all, bless- 
ed for ever." All this as a fact, and as a doctrine 
both of reason and scripture, I believe. It is an 
article of faith, properly such ; not a rule of ac- 
tion. It is one of the " things that we are to believe 
concerning God ;" not otherwise one of the "du- 
ties that God requires of man." Our duty is one 
thing : the government of God is another. It is 
also of immense importance to ourselves, and of 
most auspicious bearing upon our own salvation, 
to know the trnth, and especially to lore the truth, 
in this sublime relation. No Friend however can, 
I think, "receive the love of the truth" in respect 
to the proper dominion of the Eternal — intelli- 
gently receive it, without ceasing to be a Friend. 
Though Barclay makes some exceptions in favor 
of singular individuals, such as David, Paul, and 
others, yet the system which he strenuously upholds 
is diametrically opposite to the position at the 
head of this paragraph : in this he is true to the 
doctrine of the society, but false to the oracles of 
God. "Let God be true, but every man a liar, as 



359 

it is written." Without this enthronement of the 
divine sovereignty in our faith, we shall worship a 
being, as God, who is not the true and " only wise 
God," who has not all and especially the grandest 
events in his hand, and whom any freak of chances 
may occur to frustrate and confound. Besides, we 
shall be in perpetual collision with our own eternal 
interests and with the God of the Bible. 2 Tim. 
1 : 9. 2 Thes.2 : 13, 14. 1 Thes. 1 : 4, 5. l^Cor. 
3 : 5-7. Rom. 8 : 28-30. 9 : 16, 18. 11 : 5-7. I 
just add that the doctrine of sovereignty in no aspect 
excludes those whom the doctrine of regeneration 
or faith would not equally exclude. Properly un- 
derstood it militates not against any other doctrine 
of scripture ; nor will it ever debar from the kingdom 
of heaven one who does not also debar himself by 
pride, prejudice, obstinacy, and love of the world. 

What is adventitious in the experiences of a con- 
verted sinner ; that is, what results from his tem- 
perament, his history and circumstances, and not 
from the nature of religion, being neither essential 
nor proper to its possession ; and what is thus the 
fruit of the subject and not " the fruit of the Spirit," 
to whatever degree it may extend, and however it 
may modify those experiences, in time, form, or 
intensity, I both distinguish from religion (con- 
fused as they generally appear) and also omit at 
present to consider. It is of importance however 
to remark that what the Spirit produces ice at the 
same time subordinately perform ; since his in- 
fluence succeeds only to bring us to deeds and 
courses of evangelical obedience. Holiness is not 



360 

an abstraction, nor a dormant principle, nor the off- 
spring of physical influence — except possibly in a 
subsidiary way. Holiness is an abstract word ; but 
the thing is nothing other than a cordial self-con- 
secration to God, in a way of obedience, not to our 
own imagination or devices, but to his rational and 
excellent will revealed in the gospel. The word 
holiness is applicable, with all its cognates, sanc- 
tify, sanctification, saints, holy, and others, to 
persons and things equally ; being so used abun- 
dantly in the scriptures : their common import 
being — set apart from a common to a sacred 
use ; set apart for God, Thus, the temple 
with all its premises, furniture, and service, was 
holy ; and holiness to the Lord is the motto of his 
universal worship. Here then, is the clue to its 
personal meaning ; those persons are holy who, 
being enlightened to know and regenerated to love 
the gospel, are willingly consecrated or set apart for 
God. To produce and sustain this result is the 
design of the Spirit's influence and of the means 
of grace. When any one finds himself thus serving 
Christ, he is a saint, and the Spirit of God hath 
hallowed him as a living temple of his influence. 
In conversion itself the subject is brought to adopt 
other views, feelings, motives, and ends of conduct, 
than he previously ever knew. He is changed in 
Ms estimate of objects and in his volitions concern- 
ing them and in his relations to them. Before, the 
world, in some form, was his idol, his pleasure, his 
all ; and to it he sacrificed his conscience, his rea- 
son, his salvation ; while God and religion were 



361 

objects of practical neglect and steady dislike. 
Now, he sees that such an estimate was false, cri- 
minal, ruinous ; and that to choose the world for 
his portion is to choose hell for his destiny : it is 
the estimate corrected that revolutions the choice. 
Now, he resolutely resigns the world and " chooses 
that good part which shall not be taken away from 
him," The estimate may exist imperfectly, without 
the choice ; and so the subject revert from mere con- 
viction to a worse apostacy : but it is not conceiva- 
ble that the definitive choice should occur but as the 
result of the estimate. Such a volition was never 
his before, whom its occurrence defines " a new 
creature." Thus the Spirit accords in his opera- 
tions with the laws of mind, of which himself is 
the creative author. He operates on moral agents ; 
who are not the less such because previous trans- 
gressors and enemies ; and they are not the less 
such for what he does in reforming them, either in 
the process or the result. Those who would see a 
perfect picture of his influences in conversion, 
sketched in their results alone, may consult the 
parable of the prodigal son. After his voluntary 
desertion of his father, after his riotous and profli- 
gate courses, we see a pause, a consideration of 
his state ; we see his rectified estimate of things, 
his definitive and voluntary resolution, his practical 
consistency, his humiliating and ingenuous confes- 
sion, his gracious reception, his final restoration, 
and the elevated rapture of his father and house- 
hold at the event. 

Having thus given an outline of this most impor- 

46 



362 

tant doctrine, according to the scope of scripture, 
I wish to characterize the views of Friends as con- 
tra-distinguished from it. 

(1) They hold to continued miraculous influ- 
ences, or — what is much the same — to the prece- 
dency of subjective impressions, or immediate " ob- 
jective manifestations" in the mind. Their whole 
system is subjective mainly. Saith Barclay, "which 
revelations of God by the Spirit, w T hether by out- 
ward voices and appearances, dreams, or inward 
objective manifestations in the heart, w r ere of old 
the formal object of their faith, and remain yet so 
to be ; since the object of the saint's faith is the 
same in all ages, though held forth under divers ad- 
ministrations. And what was the object of their 
faith, but inward and immediate revelation, as we 
have before proved. But further ; if the object of 
faith were not one and the same both to us and to 
them, then it would follow that we were to know 
God some other way than by the Spirit." Sophis- 
tical as ever ! as if the medium of knowing were 
the same with the object known ! 

(2) They hold to the necessity of those, and to 
that faith which is founded on them as their "for- 
mal object," in order to salvation. " The true and 
effectual knowledge, which brings life eternal with 
it, — is no otherwise attained ; and none have any 
true ground to believe they have attained it, who 
have it not by this revelation of God's Spirit." 
What is this but eternally unchurching all who dis- 
believe his doctrine ! 

(3) They hold that this is universal, all men 



363 

participating it in all ages of the icorld. " This 
light enlighteneth the hearts of all in a day, in or- 
der to salvation, if not resisted : nor is it less uni- 
versal than the seed of sin." 

(4) They hold that, as it is by consenting to 
this internal light that one man " differs from 
another " untu salvation, so it rests absolutely and 
ultimately and wholly and only with his will to 
consent or not, and so to self arbitrate the event 
of salvation ; yet, they maintain, that, as it is by 
consenting to the influence that it saves us, so we 
ought not to SAY that we save ourselves, but that 
it saves us. It might be proper to inquire how 
happened Barclay to consent, when others refus- 
ed I There was either a cause for it or there was 
not : if the former, what was that cause I " Who 
maketh thee to differ from another] and what hast 
thou that thou didst not receive 1 Now if thou 
didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou 
hadst not received it V 1 Cor. 4 : 7, and 2 Cor. 
5 : 5. But if it was a mere hap, for which there 
was no cause at all, then the following absurdities 
result : (1) God himself could not foreknow it; for, 
that which had no cause was a mere fortuity. It 
might have come to pass and it might not ; how 
then could God have certainly foreknown that it 
would come to pass, as now the event has taught 
us all that it did 1 If we say he foreknew uncer- 
tainly, what is this but affirming his ignorance, 
since we all do the same with respect to future 
events — of which we are all totally ignorant ! It 
follows that God never foreknew that any one 



364 

would consent, or knew at all until he happen- 
ed to find out that he had consented ! This is 
next door to horrid impiety. (2) There is no cer- 
tainty of the continuance of the church on the earth. 
It is only by consenting to follow the Spirit that 
any man becomes a member of the church invisi- 
ble, as we all agree. If then it be an absolute con- 
tingency, a matter of perfect chance, whether any 
one consents or not, it is at best a chance whether 
one more will ever be converted! The conse- 
quence is plain. Again, (3) It is foolish to talk of 
God's raising up ministers to prosecute his work, 
since if chance dont happen (without any cause) to 
cause the will to submit to be willing to consent to 
the impotent wishes of God, he can never raise up 
another ! What a wonderful felicity of chances it 
was in the first ages, that God happened to suc- 
ceed to procure so many apostles just when he 
happened to want them ; especially Paul ! And 
when Friends think of Barclay, what a philoso- 
pher he was, how grateful ought they to be to 
chance, by whom he was converted, by his hap- 
pening to consent to the light within ! Yea ! and 
if Fox had not so happened to consent, what 
would have become of the whole society 1 It is 
plain that Quakerism altogether, with its wonder- 
ful light, is the mere result of chance ! But let us 
hear Barclay expound the matter. " I say— that 
as the grace and light in all is sufficient to save 
all, and of its own nature would save all ; so it 
shines and wrestles with all in order to save them ; 
he that resists its striving, is the cause of his own 



365 

condemnation ; he that resists it not, it becomes 
his salvation : so that in him that is saved, the 
working is of the grace, and not of the man ; and 
it is a passiveness [e. g. sitting still and placid in 
silent meetings] rather than an act ; though after- 
ward, as man is wrought upon, there is a will rais- 
ed in him, by which he comes to be a co-worker 
with the grace." This is rare inspiration and 
most sublime philosophy ! Quakerism needs some- 
thing more than an apology ! 

I now infer that the views of Friends concerning 
the Spirit, are not the views of the Bible ; 52 and re- 
mark that Barclay continually assumes their iden- 
tity and rashly reasons on that false assumption: 
particularly (1) when he quotes the sayings of 
scripture in reference to the Spirit ; and (2) when 
he quotes from Calvin, Luther, and the early Fa- 
thers, on the same topic. This is a very common 
and most unfair practice of Friends. 

It is plain that neither the scriptures nor the chris- 
tian Fathers yield his doctrine any support, unless 
it be true that their doctrine of the Spirit is itself 
identical with his! As well might Friends quote 
me, when I speak of the necessity of the influence 
and maintain that all means will be ultimately vain 
without it ; and because I say this, might they affirm 
that I held their doctrine ! and this, though I abomi- 
nate their doctrine, and believe it to be a mortal de- 
lusion, and am convinced that the blood of souls by 
thousands is chargeable to its ignis-fatuus corusca- 
tions ! The assurance of Barclay and of Friends 
generally on this article is truly wonderful ! After 



366 

affirming, he says "truly," that "this revelation of 
God's spirit" is that without which there is no saving 
knowledge, he avers, as follows ; " the certainty of 
which truth is such, that it hath been acknowledged 
by some of the most refined and famous of all sorts 
of professors of Christianity in all ages." He then 
tries, awkwardly enough, to reconcile his theory with 
their piety and salvation — whom he intends to ad- 
duce as witnesses; and in a sort succeeds. But 
mark! they w T ere all hireling priests, doctors, and 
schoolmen, whom he elseiohere abundantly denoun- 
ces ; "justly divests of the noble title of christians ;" 
and holds up to popular execration as the corrupters 
of Christianity ! Now he needs their aid ; and as 
they have all spoken of the excellency of the Spirit's 
influences, yea, of their necessity too, he first can- 
onizes — how safe they are — and then quotes them ! 
Reader, take their names ; Augustine, Clemens 
Alexandrinus, Tertullian, Hierom, Athanasius, 
Gregory the Great, Cyrillus Alexandrinus, Ber- 
nard, Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, Dr. Smith of 
Cambridge, Ploiinus, and Origen. All these, with 
the exception of Plotinus, (a heathen platonic phi- 
losopher of the third century, who much more pro- 
bably held the doctrine of Barclay than the others,) 
believed in the paramount authority of scripture ; 
in the subserviency of the influences of the Spirit to 
the progress of revealed truth ; in the pestilent en- 
thusiasm of all pretension to "inward objective 
manifestations " of the Spirit ; and in the total 
darkness of every human mind that is not convert- 
ed through the gospel, to "the marvellous light" 



367 

of God. Quakerism indeed did not arise till more 
than a century after the Reformation ; still, we can 
judge from no uncertain premises, that the Fathers 
of that age of glorious memory would (more than 
any other men perhaps whose piety is admitted by 
Barclay) have denounced his doctrine in no mea- 
sured terms. He has culled some of their loose 
and hortatory notices of the excellency of the Spi- 
rit's influence, has translated them — I think — with 
some accommodation, and then strung them together 
as witnesses for his doctrine! The zealots, Stork, 
Stubner, Cellary, Munzer, and others, whose se- 
raphic enthusiasm clouded the Reformation and 
seems for a time to have confounded Melancthon 
and the Elector of Saxony, were in their preten- 
sions the similars of Friends ; hence the judgment 
of Luther in their case is in point, as it condemn- 
ed them for impostors, and that on the sole au- 
thority of scripture ; a test to which they were sub- 
limely unanxious to be subjected. 

The same may be said of the scripture authori- 
ties quoted in Barclay. Unmystically interpreted, 
they are loved, as well as understood, by his pro- 
testant opponents. And what in sound argument 
do they yield him, till he has shown a perfect 
agreement in nature between his view of the Spirit 
and the scripture view of the Spirit I To me (and 
I have studied the subject with full conviction for 
more than twenty years) the two doctrines appear 
just as different, and just as much hostile and mu- 
tual rivals, as are a piece of gold coined by the 
government and legitimated among the people and 



368 

a brazen counterfeit that claims an equal, nay, a 
much superior currency. 

Before I leave this point I would solemnly warn 
the christian community against a specious decep- 
tion. It has been very successfully and very ex- 
tensively practised already. Friends will proba- 
bly say of the author, Why ! he criminates all oth- 
er denominations, as much as he does us. For 
the church of England, the Baptists, [and just as 
much the Presbyterians,'] and others, hold to the 
influences of the Spirit also. I reply 1. This is 
only deception and evasion. The view of Friends 
is their own foxian view, and not ours at all ! 
There is utter contrariety i>~ nature, as well 
as difference, between the catholic view and that 
of Friends. Does the former inculcate immedi- 
ate inspiration, as indispensable to a preacher, and 
to " the building up of true faith," so that without 
it, all is vain \ or that the scriptures are " a secon- 
dary rule " merely, and to be so " esteemed 1" or 
that their paramount is, by the Spirit, inserted, as 
a seed, light, and so forth, in every man that ever 
was born ! or that this non-entity is itself the very 
vital influence of the Spirit \ or that our great 
duty is, to '-retire inwardly" and let it "expand 
and take the government !" Does the catholic 
view admit that all other ways of concurrence 
with the influence of the Spirit, except that of " si- 
lent waiting " on " the immediate drawing and 
moving of the Spirit" and his influences necessa- 
rily "sensible" "are to be denied, rejected, and 
separated from, in this day of his spiritual aris- 



ing ?" does it deny the scriptures to be " the word 
of God, the only infallible rule of faith and prac- 
tice 1" Does it make the Spirit, i. e. God himself— 
a rule of action and the highest rule 1 Does it 
find out a way of salvation for Turks, Jews, and 
Heathen of all sorts, without the gospel, and 
by "inward objective manifestations in the heart 1" 
I reply 2. That I know of no more palpable dis- 
honesty of argument than theirs, (unless their in- 
spired ignorance may palliate the crime — as it can 
no more — for their ignorance is itself a transcen- 
dent crime in the eyes of God,) when they dare 
to identify their view of the Spirit's influences, with 
that of "the common faith!" It is just as much 
like, as — folly is like wisdom; or "Lucifer fallen" 
resembles " the son of the morning," when he 
shone among the stars of God ! The things are 
two, not one ; they are contrary, not identical ; 
they are as different as inspired presumption and 
most ignorant 'sincerity' are different from the 
" truth and soberness " of Christianity. 

There is one class of texts, by which Friends 
defend their tenets ; such as this, for example, that 
Christ has promised "to be to them mouth and 
wisdom, tongue and utterance," (see orthodox tes- 
timony, 1830,) whenever they preach; which class 
it is exceedingly difficult for me, as an uninspired 
biblical student, to expound. I will promise to do 
it, however, on one condition — that they will lend 
me a concordance that contains them ! the one above 
cited, is very often quoted, " with indubitable clear- 
ness and infallible certainty," by their inspired 

47 



370 

holders forth ; and hence it convinces all mightily, 
that each one, when speaking, is an example of its 
truth. Now, / can account for all they, say, much 
better, on any other supposition, than that of di- 
vine inspiration ! Let them cease to injure others 
so much, as to aver that their view of the Spirit's 
influence, is at one with the view of protestant 
christians generally. I know of no two senti- 
ments, held by different religionists on the same 
subject, more radically hostile and utterly diverse, 
than theirs and ours on that grand article ! Theirs 
too pervades and characterizes, as the grand er- 
ror of the system, its total volume. It absorbs 
every thing within, as the great sepulchre where 
all is buried " in silence !" What is not within ? 
Is it the Lord's supper, or Baptism, or justification, 
or light, or the great " Teacher that cannot be re- 
moved in a corner," or the strivings of the Spirit, or 
the ministry of condemnation and righteousness, 
or the seed, life, power, grace, principle, inspira- 
tion, and so forth — to the end of the inspired vo- 
cabulary 1 Friends often speak of sins to be 
" winked at ;" as if God winked at them ; and as if 
they did not wholly pervert the sense of Acts, 17 : 
30, which they assume to use and explain. It 
means only that in former times God did not, as 
now notably he does, send out an official protest 
and a demonstration of the preached gospel, against 
all the wickedness of men ! and not that he ever 
connived absolutely at sin, though he can pardon it 
through the sacrifice of his own Son. It means 
that in other times he practically overlooked (wfcpc-. 



371 

Scov, see Doddridge ; note in loco) the sins of men, 
or seemed to care nothing about them : " but now 
commandeth all men every where to repent." 

Now let us briefly try the question, Did the apos- 
tles, with Christ at their head, actually preach on 
the principle of the inward light as laid down in 
the Apology ? This question I have had in my 
eye and in my heart, ever since by the grace of 
God I came to know him in truth : for, "when it 
pleased God, who separated me from my mother's 
womb and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son 
in me that I might preach him among " my coun- 
trymen ; as the revelation and the vocation came 
only through the outward " objective manifesta- 
tions" of his written word and ordinances, so "im- 
mediately I conferred not with flesh and blood ;" 
but set myself to the devout and prayerful perusal 
of his own incomparable oracles ; saying, " Deal 
bountifully with thy servant, that I may live and 
keep thy word. Open thou mine eyes, that I may 
behold wondrous things out of thy law, I am a 
stranger in the earth : hide not thy commandments 
from me. My soul breaketh for the longing that 
it hath unto thy judgments at all times. Thou 
hast rebuked the proud that are cursed, who do 
err from thy commandments. Remove from me 
reproach and contempt ; for I have kept thy testi- 
monies. Princes also did sit and speak against 
me : but thy servant did meditate in thy statutes. 
Thy testimonies also are my delight and my coun- 
sellors." Psalm 119: 17-24. 

All men are not, from whatever cause, qualified 



372 

to discriminate truth, and judge principles : but to 
those whose intelligence is mature and who love 
the God of scripture — and to none others — do I 
make the present appeal, to judge in this matter 
the pretensions of Quakerism ! For one, my own 
conviction has steadily increased ; while my an- 
guish is also increased that so many gifted and 
socially lovely characters should be careering to 
eternity in the confidence of the light icithin ! The 
excellent late Dr. Wangh of London felt the same ; 
when called to preach in a certain sea-port village 
where many Friends reside, he used the follow- 
ing pertinent figure, in a benevolent lament at 
their infatuation in superseding the true gospel of 
Christ. For the truth of the anecdote, I can 
vouch ; having received the account from a re- 
spected brother in the ministry, who enjoyed the 
friendship, and was acquainted with the person, of 
the good Doctor ; whom George III. is said great- 
ly to have revered, going sometimes incognito to 
hear him and calling him the King of Dissen- 
ters. The words are my own: "I am told, my 
friends, that your harbor is dangerous ; that it 
abounds in shoals, rocks, and breakers, which 
many a skilful mariner has braved in vain ; that 
there have been numerous dismal shipwrecks on 
your immediate coast ; but that of late there are 
proportionately few ! Do you know the reason \ 
Doubtless you do. The authorities of the country 
have at great expense humanely erected a large 
light-house, towering to the sky and shedding 
without change its faithful radiance far and wide 



373 

on the ocean. Now, the pilots can bring a vessel 
into moorings almost with no inconvenience ; and 
simply by steering according to that fixed and 
friendly light. This you know. But what would 
you think of a proud East Indiaman, with a rich 
freight on board, who, getting a strange aversion 
to that light, should light a taper in the cabin and 
steer by the light within ? Would you not remon- 
strate, if you could 1 But suppose you had remon- 
strated in vain, what would you apprehend from 
such hardihood I What, but shivered timbers and 
a dismal wreck, since all experience i*s in favor of 
the light-house as the only safe mark to steer by I 
And I, my friends, am afraid of some of you in this 
village ; afraid that your hopes and souls will pe- 
rish on the rocks of error. Instead of steering for 
the haven of eternity by the light-house of the Bi- 
ble, which the Eternal King has provided to that 
very end ; you are, I hear, many of you who re- 
side in this place, abandoning your course to the 
uncertain and insufficient guidance of a light with- 
in ! Alas ! for the freight, the precious freight !" 

But to the trial of the question. I first ask, what, 
on the Friends' theory, ought we to expect of con- 
sistent men who were inspired to preach the truth ? 
Undoubtedly, their preaching ought all to point, 
like so many concentric rays, to the focus of the 
inward light ; they ought to apprise men of its ex- 
istence, explain its nature, and exhort them to fol- 
low its suggestions. Thus Barclay, in his address 
to Charles II. notwithstanding the known profligacy 
of that wicked prince, tells him of that light that 



374 

" shineth in his conscience :" terms it the Light of 
Christ ; exhorts him to "apply himself to it." and 
follow it as an unflattering and all-sufficient guide. 
So did not the apostles. So did not their Lord ! 
They did indeed say to the visible church that Christ 
was in them, except they were reprobates ; but 

XEYER THAT CHRIST WAS IX REPROBATES ! The 

distinction of Barclay here between the inbeing and 

inhabitation of Christ is a piece of learned fustian, 
a miserable evasion ; and reminds one of his Je- 
suitical education ! See his words after vehiculum 
Dei below. 

The apostles preached that '-'God now commands 
all men every where to repent ;" no notice of the 
light. Christ testified that they should " all perish." 
except they repented. Their common doctrine of 
regeneration is very adverse to the idea of Friends. 
Instead of telling men that the seed is in them, and 
must be cherished and made to grow ; they told 
them that they were all sinners, "'dead in tres- 
passes and sins." and must be totally changed in 
their moral nature,, or perish ; without one glance 
at any such thing as the seed ! The order of God, 
which they every where resounded, was. Repext 
axd believe the gospel. Paul indeed told the 
Athenians that God is "'not far from every one of 
us ;" and here what a fine opening he had for the 
seed doctrine ! how he m ght have added, in Bar- 
clav's words, by way of explanation,, for -a divine 
spiritual, and supernatural light is in all men ; 
which light or seed is vehiculum Dei ; as God and 
Christ dicelleth in it. and is never separated from 



375 

it ; and as it is received and closed icith in the heart, 
Christ conies to be formed and brought forth.'" In- 
stead of this, his explanation is merely of the natu- 
ral presence and ubiquity of God ; " for in him we 
live, and move, and have our being :" Mark ! we 
as creatures are in God, not God in us : " for we 
are all his offspring." The apostles preached that 
" the whole world lieth in wickedness ; that every 
mouth shall be stopped, and all the world become 
guilty before God ; that the friendship of the world 
is enmity with God ; that God so loved the world 
that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever 
believeth in him might not perish, but have ever- 
lasting life ; that the stone which was set at naught 
of the builders, is become the head of the corner ; 

NEITHER IS THERE SALVATION IN ANY OTHER : for 
THERE IS NONE OTHER NAME UNDER HEAVEN given 

among men, whereby we must be saved ; that this 
is the record, that God hath given to us eternal 
life ; and this life is in his Son : he that hath the 
Son, hath life ; and he that hath not the Son of 
God, hath not life ; that he that believeth not the 
gospel, shall be damned ; and that the wicked 
shall be punished with everlasting destruction from 
the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his 
power, when he comes to be glorified in his saints, 
and to be admired in them that believe ;" and that 
to reject or sophisticate the gospel is the criterion of 
eminent wickedness. 

In all these specimens of genuine inspiration, as 
taken from the preaching of Christ and the Apostles, 
it is observable that not only is nothing said about 



376 

this seed or light of Friends, either in a way 

^prehension at explication or allusion, bnt the pro- 
poskions themselves the possibility of its 

existence. They preached an outward Christ to 
a world inwardly dark and lost : is Moses 

'..:: rd up the serpent in the wilderness ;" they dire : 
men to look ; themselves for salvation, to " Jesus 

rial and him cr a : . a e :: . " whom they 1 1 e b e d a s 
the only hope of the ; . ; Ihey called upon men 
a: rXfrcise " reeeaaaEce ::"":-..::. G:a :::.'. :a;:a :■:•• 
ward our Lord Jesus Christ ;** and they folly ran 
the impenitent and the unbelieving not only of the 
terrible guilt of then courses, bat of eternal damna- 
tion as the certain : a sequence of remaining in them. 

I add., i: - any sin that induced the more 

dreadful dennnciat: : b : f these no ssionaries of hea- 
ven, it was undoubtedly the sin of corrupting the 
doctrines of r How aeaaendous are * 

:f Jes us Chrisf against the Scribes and 
Pharisees fin neglecting, superseding, :; misinter- 
preting, the holy scriptures Read the seventh of 
Marl: ind die tare -third of Ma: thew, and ponder 
e:i;::. ye whe ioab: it. Again, take one 

mg be : : the preachir. g ■■: f Paul, which is applica- 
ble too, to all modern corrut able for 
them thai : :: the gospel. Acts. 1 1 full 
of all subtlety, and all mischief] thou hjM :: 
devil, thon enemy :: all righteousness, wilt re: 

; : I CEASE TO PERVERT THE RIGHT WATS OF THE 

: He then sa:;:e liim with blindness 

raculons agency; and all this because he "with- 
stood them, reeking to turn away the deputy from 



377 

the faith." If it be such sin to "turn away 55 one 
soul "from the faith, 55 what kind of responsibility is 
theirs who actually divert thousands from the same! 
I come now to show 

VII. The fallacy of all the evidence upon 
which the doctrine affects to be supported by scripture. 

This proposition might imply or seem to require 
that I must follow them in the examination of all 
the evidence which they adduce, in order to evince 
its fallacy. But this were perhaps impossible ; since 
there is plainly no end to the perversion of the sense 
of scripture, by the application to its pages of some 
fond and false principles of interpretation. There 
never was a book more susceptible of specious per- 
version than the Bible. Not that it is w r axen and 
flexible in its own native structure. Just the reverse. 
But there are many causes which enable a wrong- 
headed fanciful expounder to wrest its meaning with 
plausibility and verisimilitude. The ancientness of 
the style ; the peculiarities of the Jewish nation to 
whom it was first communicated ; the facts and usa- 
ges of oriental antiquity; the dependence of its parts 
on each other ; the truth-fraught boldness of its 
phraseology ; the latitude and strength of its figures ; 
the fulness of its mercy ; and other characteristics not 
to be numbered ; so appear on the face of its pages, as 
to give ample scope to the action of a lawless, theory- 
loving, imaginative mind, and seem (and only seem) 
to yield to an influence upon them, all plastic and 
coercive, which the graceless interpreter ingeniously 
emits. But let it be remembered that if probation 
is here, retribution is hereafter. Every thing in the 

48 



37r 

divine constitution, and the Bible more especially, is 
purposely designed to try the reins and heart ; and 
while God gives all needed scope to the exercise of 
our moral powers., and preserves perfect our proper 
freedom, he proportionately augments our personal 
responsibility ! V> o be to the sinnerwhose rashness 
or whose malevolence trifles with the truth of Jeho- 
vah and vitiates the meaning of his written oracles ! 
The Bible is capable of the most clear, full, and sa- 
tisfactory exposition. Holy ingenuousness of heart, 
and a well disciplined mind., are the grand qualifi- 
cations of an interpreter. Learning, patience, col- 
lateral helps., a knowledge of the hermeneutic art 
founded as it is on the soundest principles of 
science., a correct philosophy, and especially a 
thorough and critical knowledge of the original 
languages ; these are subordinate, but most desira- 
ble ; and for a public teacher of religion they are to 
a certain degree indispensable qualifications. May 
the church be ever saved from the interpretation of 
i sincere' and blundering ignorance ! 

To say this, is consistent for us. who profess an 
utter indebtedness to the scriptures for all we have 
ox divine revelation. But — Friends — their relation 
is widely different every way to that Book of Books. 
One would be likely to inquire why they value 
scripture supports, conjectured or real, even as 
much as they appear to do. seeing they are so sub- 
limely furnished, every man •'• under his own vine 
and his own hg-tree," with a private supply of pa- 
ramount authority and excellence ! But thev do 
indeed affirm that the scripture teaches their very 



379 

doctrine. They name the texts that contain a tes- 
timony to their creed of a universal inward light, 
and refer us to them with as much confidence as if 
any such doctrine was soberly taught in the word of 
God ; or as if now they believed the Bible to be of 
supreme authority. I commence by flatly denying 
their assertion : and am bold to pledge myself that 
there is not one text in the whole Bible that, in its 
native and proper import, contains any such doc- 
trine. Nay, more ; I aver that any other heresy that 
ever darkened the air, is just as able to support it- 
self on the basis of the Bible, as the awful, good- 
looking, pestilential heresy of Quakerism. The re- 
sult is that the text must first be perverted in its 
meaning (and that may be done in many ways) be- 
fore it favors the doctrine of Friends. 

Barclay's sixth proposition, after blaming his 
Arminian allies, the Remonstrants of Holland, for 
that in which they had been chiefly wanting, in 
that, though they had said so many good things 
that suited him, they have erred in affirming " the 
absolute necessity of the outward knowledge" of 
the gospel ; (where they were manifestly evangelical 
and, right ;) concludes with a censure of them " and 
many other assertors of Universal Redemption, in 
that they have not placed the extent of this salva- 
tion in that divine and evangelical principle of light 
and life, wherewith Christ hath enlightened every 
man that comes into the world ; which is excellently 
and evidently held forth in these scriptures ; Gen. 
6 : 3. Deut. 30 : 14. John 1 : 7, 8, 9. Rom. 10 : 8. 
Tit. 2 : 11." 



380 

In this passage of the Apology, and in a very 
formal part of it, (in a proposition, not the discus- 
sion of it, in the conclusion of one of his theses the- 
ologicae,) we have some six or seven verses selected 
from the whole Bible, which — he says — contain the 
proof that outward knowledge of the gospel is not 
necessary ; that the extent of Christ's salvation is 
placed in the inioard-light principle which is in 
every man ; and all this " is excellently and evi- 
dently held forth " in the passages he has cited. 
To these then let us go, much in the order pro- 
pounded, to see this blazing and excellent evidence, 
which, we believe, was all in his own enlightened 
imagination. After considering these, we shall no- 
tice a few other of their vaunted proof- texts. Why 
should any man be allowed to vend such ruinous 
imposture, without animadversion? 

1. We begin with Gen. 6:3. " And the Lord 
said, my Spirit shall not always strive with man ; 
for that he also is flesh : yet his days shall be an 
hundred and twenty years." Barclay's comment, in 
discussing his proposition, is simply this, so far as 
interpretation extends ; " my Spirit shall not al- 
ways strive in man ; for so it ought to be trans- 
lated." Why did he not condescend to give us 
some proof of this ? He makes an assertion, bold, 
new, contrary to received opinion, based on philo- 
logical criticism or the implication of it, a most im- 
portant assertion and one fundamental to his in- 
ternal scheme ; and yet, never offers a single par- 
ticle of proof of his version ! This might answer, if 
he was really inspired to say so : but then he ought 



381 

to work a miracle to prove his inspiration. Other- 
wise we must just treat him like another man. 
Mark ! the point of difference here is not whether 
the Spirit strives with men ! This is admitted. But 
it is whether he strives in every man and without 
outward means, according to the scheme of the in- 
ward light? So says Barclay :— -he asserts that he 
does. We call for proof: — there is none ! Why then 
does not his assertion fall by its own sluggishness, 
having nothing to support it 1 O — Because he is 
inspired! We call again for proof: — there is 
none ! Why then must we believe him 1 Is it be- 
cause he was so learned 1 We answer, whatever 
his general learning might have been, it was all 
nothing unless he was specially well versed in He- 
brew philology and criticism ; and even then his 
assertion is insufficient. When a man tells how a 
text ought to be translated, a most important text 
and a most cardinal alteration, and yet gives us not 
one syllable of evidence on which to found his as- 
sertion, we ought to be wont to defer very much 
indeed, censurably much, to his lore and correctness 
as a Hebrean, or more to his inspiration, in order 
to give any confidence at all to his opinion ! Bar- 
clay's Hebrew knowledge however is very question- 
able. It is my opinion that he knew little or nothing 
of the language. 

Our translation of the original word D*^?, ren- 
dered in our Bible with man, may safely be pro- 
nounced a correct one. If there be a question in 
the case, it all turns on the first letter of the word. 
The prepositional prefix 3, is rendered with by 



382 

our translators and in by Barclay. He says it ought 
to be in. But how does he know this 1 Is it be- 
cause the letter D, means in and only in, accord- 
ing to general grammatical usage, when so prefixed 
to nouns ! If this were a fact, it would seem to jus- 
tify his assertion and greatly assist him. But the 
misfortune of his predicament is that the fact is 
otherwise. To mention one case of a thousand, it 
is rendered with six times in one verse ; Exod. 
10 : 9. 3 means almost any thing, as it is situated. 
It is a preposition of notoriously large and generic 
signification. One must always look at the nature 
of the case to know how to render it. Our Lexi- 
cons give a numerous retinue of meanings in its 
definition. Parkhurst has numerically thirteen ! 
For the sake of general readers we will state them 
and others. In, within, among, when, because, to, 
against, icith, together with, concerning, of, into, 
by, by means of, after, for, on account of, according 
to, upon, above, are all given as forms of its mean- 
ing in different circumstances. Now look at the 
assertion ! He takes one meaning out of twenty, 
and decides without any reason offered that such is 
what it ought there to have ! The Lexicon of Ge- 
senius by Gibbs contains the following remarks, on 
2 as a prefix preposition ; it is one " occurring in 
various connections and significations, which in 
other languages must be expressed by many diffe- 
rent particles." It then proceeds to give the dif- 
ferent meanings and formally enumerates nineteen 
with references and proofs. At best it can deter- 
mine nothing in the case. On the score of philo- 



383 

logy therefore- the assertion of Barclay is good for 
nothing. The error is the more reprehensible that 
the matter is so important ! It is all in the contro- 
versy, if it decides the point in favor of his doctrine 
of the light within. 

I allege further that it is an awkward and unna- 
tural rendering, which it ought not to have ; that 
there is no necessity of supposing any immediate 
objective manifestation to the antediluvians either 
within or without them, since we know of the ex- 
istence of mediate ones, quite adequate to answer 
the demands of the case; and that there is nothing 
in the condition of the church or of mankind, before 
the scriptures began to be written, that requires or 
warrants the theory of Friends. A word on each 
of these, superfluous indeed for the critic, but per- 
haps needful for others. 

(1) The passage ought not to be rendered as 
Barclay decides, because his way is awkivard 
and unnatural. We have seen that there exists 
no grammatical necessity for his version. I now 
assert that it is destitute of all intrinsic propriety. 
The sense of the verse is liberally this : My Spirit 
shall not be striving with man forever or for an 
indefinite period ; for he is mortal, carnal, rebel- 
lious : I will bring the matter to some end and 
issue, and thence appoint him ] 20 years of further 
trial; at the expiration of which period I will 
drown all the world with a flood. As if he had 
said / will not always and to no result be dealing 
with man, and bearing with him. My Spirit of 
truth and mercy shall not always be treating, and 



384 

striving, and forbearing, with him to no purpose; 
I will take measures to cut it short in judgment: 
the controversy shall be settled. The longevity of 
the antediluvians made such a procedure aptly pro- 
per ; and 120 years was to them but a short respite, 
so long was their life. It was but a brief appen- 
dix to the age of one of them who was old ; but 
when it was for all, young and old together, it was 
solemn, it was terrible ! The reason was, and this 
is the natural rendering, that God icould not he 
always, and to no result, treating and contesting 
with man. In common negociations between con- 
tending parties, it is common, it is natural, for one 
of them to say, you knoic my terms ; I will not 
waste time or dally with you, as if this treating 
with you were to continue for ever. I will limit 
a time, say one month, within which you must de- 
cide. This will better appear, when we consider, 

(2) That there is no necessity of supposing 
any "immediate objective manifestation" to the 
antediluvians, either within or without them, since 
we know of the existence of mediate ones, quite 
adequate to ansicer the demands of the case. We 
are informed of the preaching of Noah to them ; of 
the vast operations, constantly advancing through 
the whole period, in the building of the ark, which 
solemnly warned them of the approaching deluge ; 
and of other means which they enjoyed in wonder- 
ful advantage and perfection : — by all which means 
the Spirit of Jehovah strove with that evil genera- 
tion. 

The facilities of tradition, connected with the fact 



385 

of genuine and decided piety, down to the period to 
which the text refers, and even after it, demonstrate 
the plenitude of outward means. Our positions here 
are that outward means are necessary ; that the 
word of God is the grand instrument for ever ; and 
that, whether this word be written or spoken, deliver- 
ed by oral prophecy or oral tradition, it is the out- 
wardly ministered word of God, and not any in- 
ternal objective manifestation apart from it, by which 
his Spirit strives with men in all ages. We believe 
indeed in the inward objective manifestation occa- 
sionally and extraordinarily made to his prophets 
by the Spirit : but then we also hold that these were 
most generally made to be written or spoken for the 
sake of others, and so were peculiar to the prophet as 
such ; of course they were not, as such, a universal 
inward light ; and when communicated, though they 
were objective, they were not immediate ; since holy 
men spake, preached, taught, worshipped, and labor- 
ed for the souls of men : and thus God strove with 
them, in kind, not in degree, and form, exactly as he 
does with us. Our knowledge of those ancient ages is 
indeed very general and limited. But it is not there- 
fore indefinite ; we know enough to authorise the 
inference that they well knew the will of God by or- 
dinary outward means and the occasional inspiration 
of a prophet ; either (and much more both) of which 
ways shows the non-necessity of the theory of Friends 
to account for the whole matter ; for it is obvious that 
Barclay and others suppose (wild as is the sentiment) 
that the mere fact that God strove with men, and 
communed with them by his Spirit, before the scrip- 

49 



386 

tures were written, is proof positive of their doctrine ! 
This might be probable, if we could think of no 
alternative much more rational, adapted to accounta- 
ble agency, and like the known and common ad- 
ministration of the reigning Jehovah. But suppose 
that generation had all been cotemporary with 
Adam, Seth, Enoch, and perhaps thousands of 
others, who were truly pious, benevolent, and en- 
lightened in the ways of God ; was there any ne- 
cessity that the inward light should then, more than 
now, be afforded to make them completely account- 
able, and vindicate the moral empire of God, whose 
Spirit strove with them by these instruments \ But 
their common longevity made them almost all 
cotemporary icith each other, and facilitated the 
traditional progress of knoicledge to a degree of 
which ice can scarcely form an adequate concep- 
tion ! The fifth chapter of Genesis warrants me in 
saying the following things, according to the strict 
calculations of simple arithmetic. Noah was 480 years 
old when the period of awful probation commenced. 
He was born only 126 years after the death of 
Adam. He was cotemporary with Enos, the third 
from Adam, 84 years ; and with all his other an- 
cestors, after Seth, till their exit from the world : 
Seth only and Adam had he not seen, and Seth 
died only 14 years previous to his birth. Enoch 
however, who was translated at the early age of 
365, is an exception to the above, as he is to almost 
every other statement. The venerable Methuselah 
survived his son Lamech about five years ; and was 
cotemporary with Adam 243 years and with his 



387 

grandson, Noah, 600 : as he died the very year of 
the deluge ; and most probably many other, pos- 
sibly thousands, of pious persons, shortly before 
the terrible desolation of the flood. Let us re- 
member that these were all our ancestors, as well 
as of Noah and of Christ ; let us consider that they 
were men like ourselves, only that their prodigious 
vigor of body and mind made them all giants in 
those days, of whose prowess we can scarcely form 
a fitting conception : let us recollect that God has 
always had a church on the earth, " a seed to serve 
him " that is " accounted to the Lord for a genera- 
tion ;" Psalm 22 : 30, and then let us inquire, is it 
probable that their need of the Bible was as great 
as is ours 1 had they not traditional helps and faci- 
lities altogether peculiar and wonderful for the pre- 
servation of the oral word of God 1 and if any 
special want or waning of knowledge existed, could 
not God inspire a prophet, as Enoch, Noah, or 
others, to speak to them and communicate his will I 
Is there no solution in reason or probability, with- 
out that wild one of Friends ] Must we suppose 
internal objective manifestations in every man — a 
universal inward light, in order to understand their 
case'! Is there no way in which the Spirit could 
strive with man, unless he strove in man, and in 
every man of that age 1 How then does the pas- 
sage in question so " excellently and evidently hold 
forth" the doctrine of Friends 1 I solemnly declare 
that I cannot see, and do not at all believe, that it 
teaches or favors in the least any such doctrine as 
that which Barclay's sanguine assertion declares it 



388 

so excellently and evidently to inculcate ! The Holy 
Ghost is said to be resisted or striven against when 
a prophet of God delivers his message to a rebel- 
lious auditory or nation. " They rebelled, and 
vexed his Holy Spirit : therefore he was turned to 
be their enemy, and he fought against them." Is. 
63 : 10. " Since the day that your fathers came 
forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day I have 
even sent unto you all my servants the prophets, 
daily rising up early and sending them : yet they 
hearkened not unto me, nor inclined their ear, but 
hardened their neck: they did worse than their fa- 
thers." Jer. 7 : 25, 26. This same principle is 
proved in the concluding words of Stephen before 
the council. After a long sermon, made up al- 
most wholly of scripture references, in which he 
proved that Jesus was the Messiah and confound- 
ed and even exasperated (he did it innocently) 
his auditors ; he perceived their perturbation and 
their malice, and thus in the conclusion of his 
discourse applied the subject : " Ye stiff-necked, 
and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do al- 
ways RESIST THE HOLY GHOST I AS YOUR FATHERS 

did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not 
your fathers persecuted 1 and they have slain them 
that showed before of the coming of the Just One ; 
of whom ye have been now the betrayers and mur- 
derers ; who have received the law by the disposi- 
tion of angels, and have not kept it." Acts, 7 : 
51-53. On this excellent and evident passage, I 
remark, (1) that the hearers of Stephen resisted 
the Holy Ghost, not as inserted in them, but as 



389 

striving from without ; they resisted him in his 
truth, quoted from " the lively oracles," as Stephen 
calls them, (not the dead letter, as Friends \alone 
call them,) and ministered by a living preacher to 
their rebellious " heart and ears." (2) Stephen says 
that this was just the way of their fathers ! Hence 
we conclude that their fathers resisted the Holy 
Ghost speaking in his prophets or in his written 
lively oracles. He adds in proof, " which of the 
prophets have not your fathers persecuted V 9 This 
is " evidently and excellently " apparent as the way 
of the Spirit's striving, and the way of resisting his 
influences, in all ages of the world. But where 
now is the mystical, interior, materializing thing, 
called universal inward light ? 

Let us return to " the years beyond the flood." 
If it be demanded, why were not alphabetical 
writing and the scriptures introduced sooner in the 
ages of the world ! I answer, The relations of 
truth were fewer and simpler, in those early 
periods of time ; the facts that make up the sub- 
strate (if I may so speak) of scripture history had 
not many of them then occurred ; it was suitable 
to the known wisdom of the divine economy gra- 
dually to increase revelation's light, and multiply 
its relations, to the times of Messiah ; as well as 
to converge its radiations to their focus on Mount 
Calvary, and to perpetuate its reflections thence, 
through the medium of the written oracles, the 
ministry of the word, and the christian sacraments, 
to the end of time : while the singular facility of 
communicating knowledge, by the common longevity 



390 

of those ancient patriarchs, completes the solution. 
The building of the ark was a slow, prodigious, 
and portentous operation. First and last, we have 
reason to think, it filled the awful interval of the pe- 
riod, 120 years, in which the world was plainly and 
externally warned of the approaching inundation. 
The matter was doubtless understood, and most 
probably derided and scorned by them to the last. 
" They did eat, they drank, they married wives, 
they were given in marriage, until the day that 
Noah entered into the ark ; and the flood came and 
destroyed them all." Luke, 17 : 27. While it 
evinces, among other proofs, the advance of those 
" awful fathers of mankind," in civilization and the 
arts, that such a structure as the ark could be rear- 
ed and completed at all, as it would have been in 
any age a wonder greater than the tomb of Mau- 
solus ; the number of men directly and indirectly 
engaged in its fabrication must have been prodi- 
gious ! The difficulty stated in Calmet, (see arti- 
cle Ark,) against this view of the long period of its 
building, is imaginary ; and will vanish (though you 
admit, as I do not, his premises) simply by reading 
Gen. 6:18 prospectively with respect to his sons, 
as the sense and the words plainly require : so that 
it neither concludes nor militates against the gene- 
ral idea of expositors, that the probationary inter- 
val of 120 years was occupied in the monitory pre- 
paration of the ark. And what was the intelligible 
motto of this enterprise 1 What the meaning of 
Noah's conduct in its prosecution 1 What the 
speaking portent of it all ? The answer is at hand. 



301 

" By faith Noah, being warned of God of things 
not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark 
to the saving of his house, by the which he con- 
demned the world, and became heir of the righte- 
ousness which is by faith." Heb. 11 : 7. Noah also 
explained himself, unquestionably : for he was a 
minister of religion, a man of resources and influ- 
ence, a character of probity and renown, and as 
such well known by the whole world. " God spar- 
ed not the old world, but saved Noah, the eighth 
person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in 
the flood upon the world of the ungodly." 2 Pet. 
2 : 5. Thus it appears that the whole world, by 
outward means, and mainly through the preaching 
of Noah, were warned ; were rebellious to the 
known will of God ; and so perished for ever. This 
seems to be, without doubt, the purport of the pas- 
sage in 1 Pet. 3 : 19, 20, which affirms that those 
spirits, once rebellious "while the ark was prepar- 
ing," are now "in prison," no more reached with 
the ministrations of mercy and the offers of salva- 
tion. See Macknight in loco. It affirms that 
Christ preached to them; just as Paul affirms that, 
after his ascension, Christ " came and preached 
peace " to the Ephesians : he preached to these by 
the apostles and their colleagues ; and to the anti- 
deluvians by Noah and others. Thus the adage, 
Quod facit per alium, facit per se : what one 
does by another, he does by himself. 

From all this, I infer that those ancients had a 
correct knowledge of the creation of the world ; of 
the temptation and fall of man ; of the promised 



392 

Messiah; of the worship and murder of Abel; of 
the holy Sabbath ; (compare Gen. 2 : 2, 3. 8:10, 
12, and other places where the number seven was 
eminent as a symbol of perfection ;) of the charac- 
ter, prophecy, and translation of Enoch ; of the 
divine institution and typical import of sacrifices ; 
of the influences of the Spirit ; of the perfections 
and ways of Jehovah ; of the nature of religion ; 
of God's anger with them ; of the second advent of 
Christ and eternal judgment ; (see Jude, 14, 15 ;) 
and of innumerable other things, to a degree far 
surpassing in some respects our outward privileges ; 
and all this without any implication or sanction of 
the fancy of an internal objective light w 7 hose mani- 
festations were given to every man on the globe. 

(5) There is nothing in the condition of the 
church or of mankind, before the scriptures began 
to be written, that requires or warrants the theory 
of Friends. 

X am thus extensive on this point, because it is 
one in which the genius of Quakerism triumphs, as 
if all its rash assumptions w r ere infallible truths. 
This paper need not be loaded with quotations from 
all their works in which they speak of periods be- 
fore the scriptures began to be written, as those in 
which their vieics of the light within must be ad- 
mitted. Who spake to Abraham, or Noah, or 
Enoch, and others, say they, before there was any 
Bible 1 And how did those patriarchs manage 
who had no Bible and yet walked with God 1 
They make these bold appeals just as if their ques- 
tions could be answered only by admitting their 



393 

answers ! only by adopting their doctrine ! only by 
rejoicing in " the sparks that they have kindled !" 
This absurd exaltation looks so much like evidence, 
argument, demonstration, in the eyes of those who 
admit their inspiration while they thus exult, that 
millions are captivated, convinced, converted, and 
it may be also inspired, when they witness its 
imaginings. 

The apostle says that all these ancients were ac- 
tuated by faith ; and with Barclay, I admit that the 
great object of faith then and since is " Dens lo- 
quens" God speaking. But cannot God speak to 
us, unless he speaks in us, and in each one of us 1 
This is the question : and until they actually prove 
the negative, Friends have proved nothing to the 
purpose. Barclay himself admits that God, in all 
that long tract of time, 2500 years, before the Bi- 
ble or the Pentateuch was given, and before alpha- 
betical writing was known, (or revealed, as some 
think it was of inspired original and first made 
known to Moses,) often spake to men by the minis- 
try of angels, by " outward voices, appearances, 
and dreams," and by the agency of human preach- 
ers : and any one of these five modes will account 
for the knowledge and piety of the ancients, with- 
out all influence or agency of the light within ! 
Hence their own admissions answer their appeals : 
while all their arguments are wholly destitute of 
proof \\\a\ such a universal internal light, or seed, 
or vchiculum dei, or divine emanation, or para- 
mount rule of action, has any existence. 

Let it be remembered too that " Noah lived after 

50 



394 

the flood 550 years ;" and that Abraham was born 
two years after Noah's death, and lived the cotem- 
porary of Shem 150 years. These facts might be 
extended : but enough is written to evince that tra- 
dition must have been a great help from the be- 
ginning of the world to the time of Moses. In 
his time, it is thought, (see Psalm 90,) human life 
was reduced to nearly its present span. The tra- 
dition of theological truth could come, through 
faithful channels, from Adam to Moses by six or 
seven steps ! and none can doubt the interest of 
those ancient Fathers of the church in handing 
down, from sire to son, a pure account of those 
wonders and truths of God which themselves su- 
perlatively loved, defended, and diffused. Friends 
at least ought to admit the value of tradition, since, 
to the exclusion of better lights in our day, it 
makes so forceful a part of their own system of 
education. Besides, in the period (427 years) af- 
ter the flood till the calling of Abraham, the tradi- 
tion, the credit, and the monuments, of that terrific 
chapter of the divine judgments, were yet recent 
and unquestionable. The deluge was then of mo- 
dern memory. The fact that such a lesson teas by 
many soon forgot, must indeed be admitted: it is 
equally criminal, wonderful, lamentable ! But this 
infers nothing against the sufficiency of the means 
for "retaining" it in their knowledge. '-For this 
they willingly are ignorant of, that — the world 
that then was, being overflowed with water, per- 
ished." God is not answerable for the perverse 
inconsiderateness of men. Where the evidence 



395 

is sufficient and the creature accountable, God is 
vindicated, whatever may be the result. The light 
of nature every where teaches more than men any- 
where learn from it; more than theologians have 
generally admitted ; and quite sufficient to con- 
clude against all the excuses of idolaters, "all the 
nations that forget God," pre-eminently all the ene- 
mies of revelation. This light does not interfere 
with that of traditional, any more than with that 
of scriptural truth. And here it requires, me- 
thinks, only a little comprehension of the facts of 
the case and a little ingenuousness of heart to- 
ward God, to perceive the irrelevancy of the theo- 
ry of Friends, the non-necessity of their universal 
inward light. I have bestowed thus much to the 
consideration of the subject, which is so plain and 
rational as represented in the total scope of scrip- 
ture that the theory of Friends is necessary to 
make rather than solve its difficulties ; because 
with them it is a capital subject, and one in their 
view quite conclusive against the paramount claims 
of "the oracles of God." 

I pass to the next passage, in which Barclay af- 
firms that the inward light is so "excellently and 
evidently" taught. 

2. This occurs in Deut. 30 : 14. " But the word 
is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy 
heart, that thou mayest do it." As Rom. 10 : 8 is 
virtually the same text, or rather a quotation and 
amplification of the first, they may be considered 
together ; though by Barclay separately noted, yet 
simply in the order of priority in scripture. With 



396 

regard to either or both these passages, I affirm 
that they neither teach nor contain the doctrine of 
Barclay. Let us examine them ; and first that in 
Romans. 

In examining this passage, it would be preferable 
to view it in extenso from the first verse of the 
chapter to the tenth. The eighth verse, however, 
is the hobby of Barclay. " The word is nigh thee, 
even in thy mouth and in thy heart." Quere, Is 
the inward light in a man's mouth 1 Is it also in 
his heart? And at the same time 1 What walk- 
ing temples of phosphorescence must we be, espe- 
cially some of us 1 For aught one knows to the con- 
trary we may be saturated with it, as men on glass 
with electricity. There is hardly as much humor as 
soberness, to a reader for example of Fox's jour- 
nal, in the thought that he must have seemed to 
himself, as he walked about on the dark earth, like 
a charged conductor of etherial light, with scinti- 
lations of glory streaming from him in all direc- 
tions. But why is it called " the word 1" Why 
not his own talismanic name of "inward light V 
The charm is gone, however, as soon as you allow 
the apostle to explain his own words ; " that is, the 
word of faith which we preach." He proceeds 
farther to explain it thus, " That if thou shalt con- 
fess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt be- 
lieve in thy heart that God hath raised him from 
the dead, thou shalt be saved : for with the heart 
it is believed unto justification, and with the 
mouth it is confessed unto salvation." The liber- 
ty I have taken with the tenth verse, is one to 



397 

which no honest scholar will object ; since it lite- 
ralizes more strictly, as well as better renders the 
sense of the original. How the word came " nigh," 
is told us by the implication or rather the very 
words of the passage ; since it is " the word of 
faith which we preach" See verse 15 also. It is 
in the heart, when it is there " believed ;" it is in the 
mouth, when it is there " confessed." It is origi- 
nally then in neither. Thus says God to Moses ; 
Dent. 31 : 19. " Now therefore write ye this song 
for you, and teach it [to] the children of Israel : 
put it in their mouths, that this song may be a 
witness for me against the children of Israel." 
Says David ; " Thy word have I hid in my heart, 
that I might not sin against thee." Ps. 119: 11. 
This is the genuine idea of "phylacteries" (pre- 
servatives or defenders) and the proper style of 
wearing them about with us ! And again ; " Take 
not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth ; 
for I have hoped in thy judgments." 43. It were 
well if Friends should ponder that Psalm, with its 
176 verses. It is a devotional panegyric (with 
eight stanzas for every letter of the Hebrew alpha- 
bet — an acrostic in the original) on the written 
word of God, as essentially subsidiary to vital 
piety in the soul ; and as showing the way of the 
Spirit in its production there ; and proving illustri- 
ously how a truly spiritual worshipper values "the 
word, the testimonies, the statutes, the judgments, 
the precepts, the laws, the sayings," of God ! How 
"excellently and evidently" then is their doctrine 
"held forth" by Barclay's vaporing quotation! 



398 

What a deception to the unwary, to the ignorant 
and unstable ! What a sin so to "wrest the scrip- 
tures ;" and to do it under the forged claim of in- 
spiration, the more to blind the mythic visionaries 
that see with him ! The enemies of God may see 
no sin in the perversion, as they see comparatively 
none in themselves : but will the friends of God 
sympathize or symbolize with them ! 

There is another proof to the same end. It is 
taken from the etymology and scriptural usage of 
the expression, here rendered in the chapter four 
times, U the word." The original is fapa, not Xoyog. 
The difference is that the former means specifically 
what is spoken, enunciated with the organs of the 
voice ; and occurs in the New Testament (I have 
counted and examined them) about 70 times. The 
latter is more generic and extensive : it means doc- 
trine or discourse, a word collective (as speech) or 
individual, written or spoken, heard or remembered 
or imagined ; and it means also, by a grand and 
most appropriate personification, the Son of God in 
his prophetical office, as the instructor of mankind 
and " the light of the world." In this last sense 
it is used by John in his gospel, 1 : 1, and in his 
Reve ] ation, 19 : 13. Here permit a digression in 
place. 

The Friends, Orthodox and Hicksites, the whole 
of them, refuse to call the scripture the word of God. 
One reason assigned is — that the title is appropri- 
ated personally to Jesus Christ. But this reason is 
most weak and sophistical. John so appropriates it 
indeed, in the two instances above cited ; and in 



399 

these alone does it certainly or prominently occur. 
He so applies it in a secondary and figurative sense, 
and very rarely, i. e. but twice. But be it remem- 
bered that as the expressions in the original are dif- 
ferent, so pyjua ?ov <deov is never applied personally ; 
never once ; though for the uttered or spoken, or 
subsequently written word of God, it occurs so very 
frequently in scripture. What reason then is there 
for their refusal \ especially when we consider, (I) 
that the inspired message of God, whether written 
or spoken, contains identically his words, and in the 
nature of things, could not have an appellation more 
proper than-" his word" for its collective record ; (2) 
that Fox says he declared "the word of the Lord " 
to the people ; and if he did, and records what he 
said identically, is not so much of it " the word of the 
Lord" still? (3) that the scriptures call themselves 
" the word of God. "Paul after quoting with expla- 
nations from the Old Testament, justifies the spiri- 
tuality of the sense and its application, thus: "for 
the word of God is quick (alive) and powerful, and 
sharper than any two-edged sword, &c." Heb. 4 : 12. 
Mark, he does not say it is " a dead letter," and not 
to be understood but by inspired catechumens ! 
They are called "the lively oracles" once ; Acts 7 : 
38 ; and " the oracles of God," three times ; Horn. 3 : 
2 ; Heb. 5 : 12 ; 1 Pet. 4 ; 11. The word spoken and 
heard is called "the word of God " very frequently. 
Hundreds of passages might be collected — but quan- 
tity is not our aim. (4) That Jesus Christ expressly 
calls the scripture the word of God. See Mark, 7 : 
13 ; where he refers, having just quoted it, to Exod. 



400 

20 : 12 ; and John, 10 : 35, where he refers, having 
just quoted it, to Psalm 82 : 6. I could easily com- 
mand more proof; but suppose that man to be un- 
candid whom the evidence already adduced fails to 
conciliate to the truth of the position that Friends 
act without reason and against it, in refusing to call, 
what God inspired to be " the law of his mouth " to 
us, the holy scriptures, the word of God. (5) That 
the word of God is properly and absolutely, (wheth- 
er written or spoken or in whatever way conveyed,) 
the highest or the paramount rule of action. It is 
not true in this world peculiarly, that it holds su- 
preme pre-eminence. It is the highest rule every- 
where ; throughout the universe ; " in all places of 
his dominion." It is the highest with " angels, that 
excel in strength, that do his commandments, hear- 
kening TO THE VOICE OF HIS WORD." It is tllUS 

that all the illustrious hierarchies of heaven obey 
him, walking by no higher rule, or rather flying by 
it alone. Thus are they " all his hosts ;" sentient 
of his will as indicated in his word ; " ministers of 
his, that do his pleasure." And what know we of 
God in a way of worship, or as it respects his as- 
certained will concerning us, except from his written 
word 1 " whereunto ice do icell that we take heed, 
as unto a light thatshineth in a dark place, until the 
dav dawn, and the day-star arise in our hearts." 
What know Friends without that glorious and ple- 
nary informer? Nothing at all in religion ! Nothing 
that is true or distinguishingly Christian ! Why then 
refuse they to call it what it is, the word of God \ O 
how much do they lose by their error here ! Where- 



401 



fore, consider (6) That the reason they allege is not 
credibly the one that influences their refusal. I do 
not say they know the fallacy and practise it contrary 
to what they know to be right. Sin is deceitful ; is 
deceit itself. Millions that are posting to hell, ac- 
cording to the testimony of scripture, are full of vain 
and presumptuous hopes ; mistaking themselves for 
the servants of Christ, it may be, when he knows 
them to be the servants of the devil. But there is 
little use here in proving this. I only allege that 
the real reason of refusal w T ith the Friends is the en- 
mity of the seed of the serpent against the seed of 
the kingdom. It is sin itself; opposition cloaked 
from sight, yet mortally set against " the truth as it 
is." If the Bible was a friend to Friends, they would 
insist on its meaning more and commend it to the 
universal reception of mankind. The word of God 
is that tremendous panoply in which "the sacra- 
mental host of God's elect" are clothed, and the 
etherial point of which is intolerable to the spirits of 
rebellion, human and infernal. It disposes of them 
too summarily. Like its Author, it respects no man's 
person. It fears nothing, conceals nothing, disguises 
nothing ; but makes manifest the character and the 
doom of the wicked, in light of the eternal throne 
and the Sovereign that reigns on it. I believe it is 
the policy and the temper of sin, and nothing better, 
no matter in whom, that resolutely and knowingly 
refuses to recognise the word of God, as such : and 
while they continue so to do, I for one can recognise 
them only as those who, I fear, are the disguised 
enemies of Jesus Christ, and " wolves in sheep's 

51 



40-2 

clothing," notwithstanding their smooth and oily arts 
of seeming goodness, by which they are wont to in- 
gratiate themselves with strangers, the simple or the 
ignorant. I return to the passage in Romans. 

It is fortunate or otherwise as we think, I pro- 
nounce it, however, fearlessly, to be a fact, that in all 
the prime quotations of the Friends, their champions 
and smaller heralds, a cool analysis of the passage 
not only dissipates the evidence on which they rely, 
but converts it into a damper of their flame — and an 
extinguisher of their light. With astonishing in- 
felicity, equalled only by the impious presumption 
of his inspired arrogance, does Barclay refer to the 
passage in question. He touches a spring, and 
fires a train, and ignites a mine, of explosion and 
ruin to his total Quakerism. It is the doctrine of 
justification. 

Of this glorious cardinal point of Christianity, the 
whole epistle to the Romans may be entitled an in- 
spired elucidation. To understand it as it is re- 
vealed, and to have hope toward God in that in- 
comparable way, will always, in a mind of compre- 
hension and consistency, induce substantially the 
following results : It will endear the scripture to all 
that is human in him, to all his facilities and affec- 
tions, to his influence and his praise, in a degree 
transcendent and supreme ; it will give him such 
hope in God through Jesus Christ as never was 
without it ; it will make holiness the passion of his 
life and the element of his motion, mental and cor- 
poreal — it will facilitate universal duty and famili- 
arize it to the practice ; it will demonstrate that in- 



403 

stead of leading to licentiousness, as infidels and 
sciolists pretend to be conscientious in alleging, it 
is the best and the only way of prosecuting " true 
holiness ;" it will give a clearness and fixity of 
vision in the things of God, a clew of interpretation 
to the whole volume of revelation, and inspire an 
immutability of character, while it communicates 
to the mind that unequaled excellence which Sir 
Humphrey Davy justly pronounces the grand de- 
sideratum of human nature, a sound and established 
religious faith ; it will impart a clear perception of 
the attributes of God, of his law, of human account- 
ability and depravity and ill-desert, of the glorious 
atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ on the accursed 
tree, of the principles of the divine moral govern- 
ment, of the nature and laws of the mediatorial 
system, of the duties and dangers of men as " pri- 
soners of hope," of the offers and promises, of the 
threatenings and denunciations of the word of God, 
and of the diverse eternal destinies of the two great 
moral classes into which the species are divided 
here and hereafter; it will commend the way of 
acceptance and justification through the Mediator, 
to the unalterable convictions of the soul, as the 
only possible way in which a sinner can be saved ; 
it will demonstrate immutably the divine origin of 
the gospel, as a thing not to be rationally referred 
to an architect inferior to Him who arched the fir- 
mament, and stored immensity with innumerable 
worlds in solemn order perfectly arranged ; and 
it will every way accomplish and confirm him as a 
christian, as never was there one on earth without it : 



404 

making moral courage u hard as adamant" aganst 
prevaricating error, and tender as the gentlest 
offices of love toward penitence or candor ingen- 
uously seeking for the truth. 

The scriptural doctrine of justification is one 
which. I am bold to say at least, is not understood 
by Friends. It is perverted by them sadly; and 
here., speaking experimentally as a witness, my 
whole soul adores the God of all grace about equally 
for my own conversion from old Adam and George 
Fox ! Through the one, condemnation reigns over 
all his depraved posterity ; through the other, I feel, 
as well as think, that it becomes well nigh eternized 
on all his perverted votaries. It is impossible for a 
Quaker consistently to learn and love the scripture 
doctrine of justification ; for, accepting it, he would 
in all consistency renounce Quakerism. 

Without delivering a dissertation on the subject, 
I shall advert to some of its important principles. 

1. It is founded on the distinction between the 
person and the character of an individual. Paul, for 
example, is the same person that he ever was, and 
so continues immutably and eternally. But his 
character is not the same that it was. Conversion 
was its first incipient change ; sanctirlcation pro- 
gressively advanced it in the divine similitude ; 
glorification hath consummately expanded it in the 
perfection of heaven. He who now emulates a 
cherub in clearness of vision and a seraph in puritv 
of zeal, was once the dark and bloody persecuter 
of Jesus Christ and his church ; " breathing out 
threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of 



405 

the Lord ;" verily thinking " that he ought to do 
many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Na- 
zareth." But, remember, he is the same person ; 
the sinner that did all those things ! His person is 
unchangeable and identical ; and so is that of every 
other individual. 

2. The moral account of every human being is 
retrospective, as well as present, and includes the 
charge of every sin, with its legislated curse against 
the person by whom it was committed. How enor- 
mous and tremendous the account ! Like the ma- 
nifesto of a correct creditor, to whom we have been 
plunging deeper and deeper in debt for a long 
course of years, the items are there that we had 
forgotten and each one contributes to the appaling 
sum total : while the claim demonstrates our bank- 
ruptcy, and holds our person justly a prisoner to its 
power. " The strength of sin is the law." Our 
insolvency — is a disagreeable thing to look at. 

Hence men of inward light are wont 
To turn their optics in upon 't. — Butler. 

Hence the doctrine of justification is so meanly and 
universally detested by the men of the world. The 
felons of the curse can ill endure a settlement, even 
by grace in Christ Jesus, if it honors law and re- 
quires them to confess the utter and terrible ruin of 
their circumstances. 



Hence all that is in man, pride, passion, art, 
Powers of the mind, and feelings of the heart ; 



:;' ::i.'..'s i'.=i:r"r.:v ■:\ M -zz:.i. 
Starts ai her nrsi approach, and sounds, to arms ! 
While bigotry, with well-dissembled fears, 
H ; 

1 1 rbrr to parry and push by God's word, 
Wiih senseless noise, his argument the sword, 
r- .ends a zeal for godliness and grace. 
And spits abhorrence in the christian's face. — Cowrrn. 

3- Justifi cation, as sach. strictly taken, respects 
the person alone, and not the character; while to 
-.mix these in the view, is the very chaos of all 
confasion to a subject worthy of the most correct 
discrimination of which the intellectual powers are 
capable. It consists in the release of the persoa. 
on account of Jesus Christ alone, from all his penal 
responsibilhes : emitting all his sins for that dear 
sake ; and accepting the party as righteous, and so 
engaging faithfully to treat him. through the Media- 
tor, to the glory of God. It is a forensic or judicial 
aration of indemnity forever, in their behalf 
who believe : and a consequent public treatmer 
them as if they were in n«: Srr.sf de Irving of the 
-- :: e :uted penalty* of law. 

4. It were easy in thought to separate, what is 
in fact inseparable, the person and the character, in 
reaped to justification: that its glorious theory 
might become more clearly discernible. The arch- 
fiend of pandemonium. fb~r example: his chara: 
is totally bad. and his person under eternal sen- 
tence Bappoae this werr reveraed, without re- 
versing or altering that : he would be personally 
free and uncondemnned, and yet as bad as ever. 
Or, suppose his character ma reversed and melio- 



407 

rated into perfect holiness, his person would still be 
holden for the sins that are past : and he would 
then be sanctified but not justified, not absolved. 
This anomaly often occurs in the jurisprudence of 
human society. A person of perfect innocence is 
convicted of crime, is not justified but condemned ; 
while the villain escapes, in the eye of law, justified. 
To absolve a person of all his sins, to release him, 
is the justifying act by which a sinner becomes ac- 
cepted in the sight of God : and is specifically 
the proper idea of redemption ano^vrpc^aig — which 
Friends define to be a cleansing of the interior 
from sin ! It contemplates us as captives, slaves 
to the curse, sold to punishment, and justly exposed 
to " everlasting destruction from the presence of the 
Lord." Hence Christ dies for us ; "in whom we 
have redemption through his blood, (that is — his 
death,) the forgiveness of sins, according to the 
riches of his grace." Eph. 1 : 7. Rom. 3 : 24. 8 : 
1, 30. When our moral relations are adjusted, 
and we are accepted as righteous in the sight of 
God, righteousness is said to be " imputed " to us, 
or reckoned or counted or accounted : for the origi- 
n al word is the same or a cognate, wherever those 
various forms occur in our translation. Yet this 
subject of " imputed righteousness" is the perfect 
horror of Friends, all of them ! And they must 
all — as they know that they do — degrade it ; for 
their inspired patriarchs all did it. And why ? Be- 
cause it is unscriptural 1 Was the epistle to the 
Galatians, and Luther's immortal commentary 
thereon, written for any other end than to disabuse 



408 

it of what its enemies had said of it, and vindicate 
it as the only way of hope ? How will a Friend be 
justified without imputation'? O, he will repent 
and mind the inward teachings hereafter. Will 
he \ and how is this to repair his former obliquity 
and defalcation 1 Will present repentance atone 
for past sins I Just as much as for future and no 
more. Suppose he was truly to repent, that is, not 
merely be sorry, dress plain, and " get still ;" but 
turn from all sin like a man, with full purpose of 
heart to practise universal righteousness : suppose 
he were " renewed up " to the perfect sanctimony 
of Fox ; still is he the same person that committed 
those former sins ; and is he righteous 1 But God 
will pardon ! Will he 1 Yes, for Christ's sake 
alone ; and he will impute righteousness also where 
he pardons ; or, every sinner of the species would 
be lost forever, all his pharisaism and all his holi- 
ness and all his "sincerity" to the contrary not- 
withstanding ! See Rom. 4 : 1-8. Gal, 3 : 6-14. 
Read, understand, believe, and love — or, reader, 
lay your account with eternal condemnation ! 

5. The evangelical system, however rejects with 
just indignation the hypocritical inuendo of infidelity 
and heresy conjoined, for their cause is one, against 
the only method of possible justification for men, 
that it tends to licentiousness ; and lays, in the very 
centre of the fabric, the basis of holiness, by defin- 
ing the nature of faith, and making its requisition 
absolute and universal, and giving the very means 
of its production and nutrition in the grace of the 
Spirit. " This only would I learn of you, received 



409 

ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the 
hearing of faith 1" Gal. 3 : 2. Faith generally 
means — confidence in testimony. Evangelically it 
means this and more ; namely, A cordial confi- 
dence in the testimony of God as contained in the 
scriptures, especially in respect to the way of justi- 
fication. It is "with the heart" indispensably that 
we believe unto life eternal. We trust affectionate- 
ly, and love what we trust ; and thus assimilate, and 
are " sanctified by faith that is in Christ." Acts, 26 : 
18. Now hope becomes the lovely inspirer of holi- 
ness — for " every man that hath this hope in him" — 
that is, in Chkist, and not in himself, as Friends 
misinterpret it ; see the original — " purifieth him- 
self, even as he is pure." 1 John, 3:3. " The de- 
vils also believe and tremble." Yes, but they never 
love and." go on their way rejoicing." A man must 
have a religion better in kind, as well as greater in 
degree, than devils, in order to escape their prison. 
What shall we say then of some who have not so 
much religion as they l Who do not even believe ! 
A christian however knows what it is to love God, 
as well as fear him ; and his very fear is " clean, en- 
during for ever." Says Paul, " For God hath not 
given us the spirit of fear ; but of power, and of 
love, and of a sound mind." 2 Tim. 1 : 7. 

It is a great proof of the stupidity of the human 
mind in the things of God, and proper to infidelity 
alone, to insinuate that the apostles were at variance 
on this article, especially Paul and James. The 
latter more insists on the holy nature of justifying 
faith ; the former more assumes it. Paul never 

52 






410 

meant to say that a " dead" an ti no mi an faith could 
save us ; nor James that " the righteousness of 
God" should be superseded or mended by our own 
doings, in order to perfect the way. James in- 
veighs against the faith that produces no good 
works, which " is dead, being alone." Paul shows 
that justification is gratuitous to the person, who 
believes " with his heart." Our present piety and 
our future, even if it were perfect — as it never is in 
this world, could only answer the preceptive claims 
of the law for the time being : in respect to time 
past, it could not cancel sin, or atone for it, or ex- 
cuse it, or reverse the facts of its history, or annul 
the moments of time in which it was perpetrated, 
or diminish the ill-desert of the person for having 
committed it ; and in respect to the future, in two 
words, what could it do to counterpoise the sins al- 
ready perpetrated, or — more impious imagining ! — 
to deserve, as its proper " wages," that " exceed- 
ing and eternal weight of glory" which constitutes 
splendidly " THE GIFT of god ex Christ Jesus 1" 
How excellent is the enlightening and sanctifying 
virtue of this doctrine of " the eternal Spirit !" 
How does it discriminate a true hope from a false 
one ! How reveal the upstart impudence of those 
human spirits whose latent pride were otherwise 
unsuspected and asleep ! How excellent must their 
service be, who never obey the gospel ; who in their 
unbelief never please God or do a single thing in 
pure obedience to his will ; and who for all this so 
estimate service by them done or to be done, in fact 
or in abeyance, especially and pre-eminently the 



411 

latter, as to think eternal glory but a fair and right- 
eous compensation for it all ! Give me and mine 
that better hope of the gospel ; " being justified 
freely by his grace, through the redemption that is 
in Christ Jesus !" There is no other hope that de- 
serves the name. To be justified possibly in any 
other way is — always to he and to have been icithout 
sin in the sight of God ! Every mortal is a sinner : 
and must be justified imputatively and for Christ's 
sake alone, by an act of pure and infinite grace ; 
or condemned distributively and for his own sake 
alone, by an act of simple and sovereign justice 
forever. 

6. The conditions of justification and salvation, 
respectively and inseparably, as here propounded to 
us, are worthy of special observation ; namely, to 

BELIEVE WITH THE HEART, and tO CONFESS WITH 

the mouth. These are plainly the terms of life 

ETERNAL ! 

To " believe with the heart," is the precise way 
in which the things of religion are felt or realized, 
spiritually and practically, by christians. It is a 
better way than all the acts and orgies of fanati- 
cism, than all the dreams of delusion, or the inspi- 
rations of sorcery, or the imaginations of credulity, 
or the artifices of impenitent remorse, or the got up 
sensations of animal zeal, can ever substitute or 
furnish. It is sober ; principled ; rational without 
neology ; fervent with no extravagance ; and happy 
without affectation. It is also useful ; delighting 
in evidence ; capable of conviction ; firm in its po- 
sitions ; noiseless and immutable. This is the kind 



412 

of christians we desire to see. " The Father seek- 
eth such to worship him." 

To " confess with the mouth " is to honor Christ 
before men ; to own the blessed Redeemer in pub- 
lic ; to join his standing army and espouse his 
cause ; and to furnish, by his command, such pro- 
per indications and signals to his officers and others, 
as are made justly requisite to a recognition of us 
on their part. Without a sound confession 
there is no recognition authorized. Besides, 
confession is said to be " unto salvation." This is 
a terrible impeachment of their hopes who shun to 
confess the Savior, or whose confession is so vi- 
tiated that it were difficult to know what is to be 
inferred from it. Is it Christ that they confess 1 or 
Mohammed \ or Confucius X or Zoroaster I or Swe- 
denburgh \ or George Fox \ or some new impos- 
ter 1 Is their confession enlightened or ignorant, 
is it sound or heretical, is it intelligible or steeped 
in stupid mysticism 1 

But the things are connected. If we believe 
aright, we so confess also. The faith governs the 
confession, as good or bad. When both are right, 
the party is diaphanous, clear as crystal, in religion ; 
and God is " glorified in him." Then the heart 
and the mouth respond to each other and to truth, 
in happy concert. The mind and the manners, the 
feelings and the words, what is within and what is 
without, the soul and the body, in a word, the total 
man, is Christ's, consistently, practically, influen- 
tially, joyfully, and for ever ! This is religion. 
Would to God that I could think, for then would 



413 

I cheerfully " confess," that such is the appropriate 
religion of a Friend ! 

" Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a 
new creature : old things are passed away ; behold, 
all things are become new." 2 Cor. 5:17. Wo, 
wo, wo, to the misery-making delusion of inward 
light ! 

7. There are but two ways possibly of justifica- 
tion before God : the first is to demonstrate that we 
are and always have been perfect in holiness, ac- 
cording to the requisitions of the law of God ; that 
is, to demonstrate here and hereafter that we have 
never sinned ; for, if we have, we fall under the 
curse of eternal justice. The other is — the way 
of grace and righteousness by imputation in Christ 
Jesus. Thus in the passage Rom. 10 : 1-10, the 
apostle declares two ways only ; and resolves the 
self-righteousness of the Jews into their ignorance 
of the divine method of justification, while he weeps 
over them without hope, notwithstanding the " zeal 
of God" which he bears witness that they had. 
" For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness, 
and going about to establish their own righteous- 
ness, have not submitted themselves unto the righ- 
teousness of God." The word " righteousness " 
in all this connection respects the person rather 
than the character ; and were better rendered "jus- 
tification " in every instance. Thus; "the righ- 
teousness of God," of which a whole nation was 
"ignorant" and remains so to this day, means — 
not the intrinsic equity of his nature, nor the rectitude 
of his moral administration, nor any general aspect 



414 

of his justice; though it implies them all; but it 
means the method which God has invented, adopted, 
revealed, and provided in Christ Jesus, and from 
which he will never depart ; the evangelical me- 
thod of justifying sinners. " For Christ is the end of 
the law" (as good as legal justification could be, to 
all intents and purposes — to say the least of it) "for 
justification, to every one that believeth." The dis- 
closure of THIS GLORY OF THE GOSPEL is expressly 

assigned by the apostle, Rom. 1 : 13-17, as one of 
his chief reasons for wishing to preach it at Rome. 
By the light of nature and the sagacity of men, it 
never could be known. It was in the gospel alone 
that it was revealed. "For therein is the righteous- 
ness of God," that is, his method of justification, 
"revealed to faith to be by faith : as it is written, 
The just by faith (or the man who is justified by 
faith) shall live ;" or be accepted, and saved in 
Christ. The liberties I have taken with our trans- 
lation, only exhibit the sense of the original more 
plainly, as the scholar will see, and as many learned 
commentators have shown. But what do Friends 
know of this glory of the gospel of Christ 1 I an- 
swer, nothing, or next to nothing and worse than 
nothing. Their system precludes it. Their igno- 
rance is organized in its alienation. They con- 
found it with sanctification, through their tradition 
and their educated lack of competent instruction. 
"I wot that through ignorance they did it, as did 
also their rulers." And I would fairly warn a 
Friend not to learn the doctrine of scripture on this 
fundamental article — if he means to keep his cast : 



415 

for the two things are utterly incompatible. Be- 
lieve the true doctrine of justification according to 
the word of God, and it will give you a solid an- 
chorage. By it both pharisaism and fanaticism will 
together die. Its influence is steadily the same : 
"that we henceforth be no more children, tossed 
to and fro, and carried about with every wind of 
doctrine, by the slight of men and cunning crafti- 
ness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive ; but speak 
ing the truth in love, may grow up into him in all 
things, who is the Head, even Christ." 

Barclay has written between 40 and 50 pages of 
his " Apology " under the head of "Justification;" 
in which he proves mainly this — that he never un- 
derstood the subject ! 

It is with a perpetual mixture of pity and grief 
and indignation that I plod through the desert of 
his dreary and Jesuitical lucubrations on this impor- 
tant theme — to which pilgrimage I have condemn- 
ed myself several times. I pronounce it mystical, 
confused, fallacious, arrogant, heretical, and of no 
solid perspicacity in the things of God. But he 
must keep up the dignity of the inward light; and 
by pretending to know every thing, vindicate the 
honor of inspiration, his own and theirs. Hence 
this quondam Jesuit, trained as his noble mind had 
been to a sophistry which ceased not to be the be- 
setting sin of his life, blunders and flounders and 
splashes along, like Bucephalus in a quagmire at 
midnight. He reminds me constantly of honest 
Considius, one of the lieutenants of Csesar in his 
Gallic wars, who reported to him an interesting 



416 

matter of fact, respecting the position of the enemy ; 

which he had just observed i: with indubitable clear- 
ness/' and therefore "'testified to" all in a hurry: 
upon which report, a military movement of some 
consequence was immediately ordered ; the whole 
army was set on march ; a lofty hill-top eminence 
was stoutly gained ; and the victorious troops ex- 
ulted without a battle — for no enemy was there ! 
the lieutenant, in the inspiration of his zeal, having 
reported an unreal spectacle ; u quod non vidisset, 
pro viso, sibi renunciasse ;" but with all the cer- 
tainty of a man who misleads a multitude, and 
even trepans a great commander, because he moves 
too fast in his observations to possess himself of 
the truth as it is, orto understand the subject of his 
sanguine communications. 

Not unwisely therefore does the saying of Luther 
receive the homage of succeeding ages in reference 
to this grand fundamental of Christianity — " ar- 

TICULUS STANTIS VEL CADEXTIS ECCLESIAE ;*' THE 
DOCTRINE BY WHICH THE CHURCH OR STANDS OR 

falls : — a sentiment of which I scarce know whe- 
ther more to admire the solemnity, the poetry, the 
validity, the utility, or the piety! It deserves the 
respect of the universe, as it conciliates the testi- 
mony of the wise. To understand the doctrine of 
justification ; to master the science of its relations 
to the law and to the gospel, with correct and pro- 
found discrimination; to adjust it in the revealed 
system, as it respects the atonement and the righte- 
ousness of Christ, the moral government of God, 
the duty of sinners, and the hopes of men ; that 



417 

same great and wise Reformer also justly made his 
criterion of a qualified theologian and an accom- 
plished minister. O how justly ! No man is fit 
to preach who does not understand it ; who does 
not aggrandize it to the perceptions of his hearers ; 
who does not glory in it surpassingly himself! But 
when was Quaker preacher such I I never knew 
or read of an instance, even by approximation ! To 
be such, is to be a Quaker no more. They do not 
understand the subject. Barclay does not — pro- 
bation sit. 

OCf* " It is by this inward birth of Christ in man 
that man is made just, and therefore so accounted 
by God : wherefore, to be plain, [who has a better 
right 1] we are thereby, and not till that be brought 
forth in us, formally, if we must use that word, jus- 
tified in the sight of God ; because justification is 
both more properly and frequently in scripture ta- 
ken in its proper signification for making one just, 
and not reputing one merely such, and is all one 
with sanctijication." The italicising is his own. 
I however will capitalize this sentiment — justifi- 
cation IS ALL ONE WITH SANCTIFICATION ! And 

sanctification, it seems, is all one with the mystic 
"seed" in us set a growing ! What shall I say? 
Is this the way to expound the word of God ; to 
sustain the protestant cause ; and to diffuse Chris- 
tianity in the world 1 

Non tali auxilio, nee defensoribus istis 
Tempus eget. Virg. 

58 



418 

Not such defenders can sustain the cause ; 

Or vindicate the truth's eternal laws ; 

Or suit the age, or claim our just applause. 

Reader, the whole dissertation is " a continent of 
mud," resolvable into the substance of the precious 
morceau I have quoted. It is a specimen of the 
whole territory. It is the seminal nucleus whereof 
all the total quantity is but the homogeneous ex- 
pansion. 

On the above, I would remark, 

1. That he evidently dislikes the word justified. 
" If w T e must use that word." Indeed ! How reluc- 
tant to use one of the u words which the Holy Ghost 
teacheth !" one of the richest in the vocabulary of 
Jesus Christ ! one of the most glorious to authentic 
hope ! I know the reason — neither the word, nor 
the thing, suits the system he advocates. It ex- 
plodes that system with mutual repugnance. The 
matter is in his w r ay ; and yet he vaunts as if it 
were an exact fit. If the word be " all one with 
sanctification," how great the infelicity of its use ! 
Why say any thing in the Bible about justification ! 
why not use one word only 1 and why does he write 
so much to tell us that both are one and the same 1 
" As many as resist not this light, but receive the 
same, it becomes in them an holy, pure, and spirit- 
ual birth-^-by which — as we are sanctified, so are 
we justified in the sight of God." Thus his seventh 
proposition, " concerning justification," proceeds, as 
the thesis of his essay : in which there are twenty- 
one lines of mythologic w 7 isdom, without even the 



419 

word faith in all his formal statement. The doc- 
trine of evangelical faith is another enemy of their 
system. 

To believe in that light — is all they know of faith ; 
and what they steal from the word of God to con- 
firm their error, they pervert to the same end. The 
faith of the gospel is intelligent ; is rational ; is 
steady ; is above the feelings, as their balance and 
their guide ; is just as devoid of fanaticism as of 
infidelity ; is happy and peaceful ; " full of mercy 
and good fruits, without partiality and without hy- 
pocrisy." But how terrible is the delusion of sin ! 
The maniac maintains his sanity in the first place, 
and construes his friends as his foes. The spirit 
of false religion rejoices in the sparks of its own 
kindling, and refuses to see itself as it is, in the 
light of truth ! But its sentence will soon be exe- 
cuted ! 

2. It is plain that Barclay confounds the distinc- 
tion between person and character, between sancti- 
fication and justification ; and is either ignorant of 
the truth or worse — such a vender of " another gos- 
pel" that if he were also "■ an angel from heaven" 
he ought not to be countenanced in his darkness 
and delusion ; in the destructive malaria of the in- 
fluence he emits ! On one occasion this doctrine 
of justification was disguised and incidentally vitia- 
ted, by the apostle Peter himself, at Antioch in Syria. 
It occurred in a way of practical "dissimulation" and 
temporizing. But Paul would not endure it. "To 
whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an 
! hour; that the truth of the gospel might continue 



420 

with you." Hence, says Paul, " I said unto Peter 
before them all," &c. He "withstood him to the 
face, because he was to be blamed." He set him right 
too, in a way magnanimous and paidian indeed : and 
Peter seems to have received the correction with a 
" meekness of wisdom " which no one of his pseudo- 
successors is known to have exemplified. Gal. 2. 
The inference is — the cardinal importance of the in- 
corrupt doctrine of justification, and the necessity of 
resisting its corruption and its obscuration too wher- 
ever they occur, no matter in whom and however in- 
cidentally. What then are we to think of a whole 
system that is destitute of the true doctrine ; that 
wretchedly sophisticates it ; that supersedes and vir- 
tually denies it ; and that, in its whole compagina- 
tion of principles and its wordy ambages of ex- 
planatory labor, does nothing but annihilate its 
character and its glory 1 Let any enlightened 
christian, ask Quakerism, where is my hope, where 
my indemnity, where my Redeemer I But blindness 
is contented — for it sees not what it loses : igno- 
rance has no conception of what is to be known ; 
and where the soul is removed from the knowledge 
of the true gospel, and is habituated (for the devil's 
greater pastime) to be amused with " another," it is 
awfully probable that the siren will continue to sing, 
and the song w T ill not cease to enchant, and the en- 
chantment will prevail till ' outer darkness ' ends 
the career. " O my soul ! come not thou into their 
secret^ : unto their assembly, mine honor, be thou 
not united !" I bless God that I am no more one 






421 

of them. Let no man rashly censure me for 
repeating this declaration ! 

3. "Because" — says he, "justification is both 
more properly and frequently in scripture taken in 
its proper signification for making one just and not 
reputing one merely such, and is all one with 
sanctification " — wonderful ! " Now the man Mo- 
ses was very meek, above all the men which were 
upon the face of the earth." How much meekness 
does it require to deal with spiritual sorcery and 
corruption! "Justification is all one with sanctifi- 
cation ;" that is " its proper signification ;" it is 
" more frequently in scripture taken " for sanctifica- 
tion ; it does not mean " merely reputing one " to 
be just; and "because" of this — 

cui lumen ademptum ! 



The monster roars tremendous in his pain 
Without an eye, and strives to see in vain ! 
Light is extinguished and he gropes insane. 

Think, reader, how profanely he caricatures the 
doctrine of God ; as if justification, as he would 
vilify it, means to "repute merely" that one is just! 
as if he were not justified by an act of God ! as if 
it consisted in giving currency to a false report! a 
fact without existence ! This is inspiration, I have 
no doubt; but not divine inspiration. It is a fact, 
and a glorious one, that every christian is justified 
in Christ Jesus, and that this is the only way. It 
is a fact that "God justifieth — and whom he justi- 
fied, them he also glorified." 

But justification is taken for sanctification "both 



422 

more properly and frequently in scripture "than — 
what 1 where is the other subject of comparison 1 It 
is at once implied, by necessity ; and slighted into 
oblivion, by design. What then is that sense of justi- 
fication which Barclay teaches is both infrequently 
and less properly connected with the word in scrip- 
ture 1 It is the sense which he dislikes, obscures, 
and supersedes, with the darkness of his foxian 
scheme of light. It is the sense of luther's all ; 
the foundation of the church ; and the glorious con- 
stitution of Jehovah ! I have " searched the scrip- 
tures " often with this very idea in my eye ; and 
now I feel perfectly authorized to contradict his as- 
sertion, and assert the contrary. The personal and 
forensic sense of the word, justification, as opposed 
to condemnation, is the primary and pervading sense 
of the word in scripture. The obscuration of this 
truth is like an eclipse of " the sun of righteous- 
ness." But such obscuration is — Quakerism ! Take 
an induction by the way — They know next to noth- 
ing of atonement, whatever they say of it, using the 
word and referring to the death of Christ ; as little 
know they of the law of God, of the nature of hu- 
man accountability, of the perfection of the divine 
moral government, of the ill-desert of sin, of the 
immutable principles of the gospel, and the method 
of acceptance with God : — or they could not be so 
dark, vacant, and erroneous, on that capital and 
central doctrine of " Jesus Christ and him crucifi- 
ed !" I summon the world to look at this and exa- 
mine it for themselves. Those who understand the 
gospel, and love it, as the thrice excellent truth 



423 

of God ; and who give themselves the trouble to 
understand Quakerism and "judge righteous judg- 
ment " concerning it, and such only, can appreciate 
what I aver. As for others — I pity them ! Prov. 
18 : 12, 13, 17. 20 : 25. 21 : 2, 3, 30. 26 : 12. Er- 
ror is often very good-looking and sometimes ele- 
gant in manners. It has the face of an angel, 
the voice of a siren, and the heart of a fiend. The 
truth of God is our only safety against its specious 
and captivating arts. There is but one way of 
being right, and many of being wrong. Rectitude 
is one thing ; deviation is manifold. One way to 
be straight ; many to be crooked ; one way only to 
heaven — but how many millions make up the laby- 
rinth of ways that lead to hell ! 

The word justification occurs thrice only in the 
total volume of God : Rom. 4 : 25. 5 : 16, 18. and 
there it means not sanctification in any instance ; 
but the act of imputing righteousness to the person 
of a believer. Its cognates, justify, just, righteous- 
ness, righteous, and so forth, refer very often as 
they occur, generally to the character indeed ; but 
perhaps never to the exclusion of that justifying 
" righteousness of God" as the primary idea, which 
it was the hope of Abel and the zeal of Paul to at- 
tain in consummation at " the resurrection of the 
dead ;" saying, " that I may win Christ, and be 
found in him, not having mine own righteousness, 
which is of the law, but that which is through the 
faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God 
by faith." Phil. 3 : 9. and the whole chapter ! 
" Even as David also describeth the blessedness of 



424 

the man unto whom God implteth righteoobkbbb 
without works : saying, Blessed are they whose 
iniquities : : w* .-■■;.-.. ar,d whose sins are covered. 
Messed is the man to whom the Lord will not im- 
pute sin." Ran. 4 : 6-8. What is this bat the 
beatitude of the man whose person is imputative 
righteous whs is accept as righteous, nc 
i _i:teousness of God" in Christ! — in the only 
way in which it is | ; ssible for a human being to be 
justified in his sight Bnt we need not quote the 
hole Bible fee convince a man of sense and can- 
dor that Quakerism here at least is not Christianity. 
In this central matter it is perverse and ignorant. 
presuming and empty, deceptive and false* 

There are two more cardinal proof-tests f Bar- 
"-: :: be examined: and I premise thai they 
are quite considerable ones, in which their doctrine 
is about as u &xeeHentfy and evidently held forth" 
as in any othr: passages m the total scripts; 
where the imperfection or plain mistake of our ve- 
nerable and learned but hot inspired transla::.- 
(more than two hundred years :_: may have r 
unwittingly to Friends, just then soon about to ris 3 
with their fight, the specious appearance of a vindi- 
cation and a sanction. I take them in order. T 
firal is John, 1 : ?. ■•' Thai was the tine bight, which 
lighteth every man that cometh into the ■ 

Respecting the true sense of this passage, I :b- 

r. in opposition to their view; 
1. The :ex: literally and strictly interpreted as 
Friends are wont to have it, is entirely solitary and 
without a parallel.. I think., in the whole Bible. The 



425 

analogy or "proportion of faith" then, is against 
it. Rom. 12 : 6. 

2. It utterly fails them in respect to internal loca- 
tion ; inasmuch as it does not say an inward light, 
a light whose site is the soul's interior: and this it 
ought to be shown to assert, before it can be legiti- 
mately accounted to prove their hasty inference. It 
tells of no such light. 3. There is positive evidence 
to the contrary ; or, that it is an external light, as 
one that casts its radiance upon an object, rather 
than one that shines within a subject. This evi- 
dence I draw from the meaning and use of the 
original word (partial, which had been rendered 
with stricter accuracy, shines upon, than enlighteneth 
or " lighteth ;" and so, being an external light, it 
cannot favor the theory of Friends or be properly 
called a divine emanation in the soul, or spiritual 
instinct within us, or any such mystical foolishness. 

The scholar will observe that the word is a de- 
rivative and diminutive formation from tyox;, light ; 
and so means to throw some of its beams on a dar- 
kened surface, as a candle in a large room enlight- 
ens it, but is itself a light and much brighter than 
the effulgence it emits. This view accords very 
well with our unmystical theory of gospel light, but 
not with their position. 

I propose here to refer in order to all the other 
places where the word occurs, that we may have 
the usage of the sacred writers to show its mean- 
ing: these places are ten only ; as Luke, 11 : 36. 
1 Cor. 4 : 5. Eph. 1 : 18. 3 : 9. 2 Tim. 1 : 10. 
Hcb. 6:4. 10 : 32. Rev. 18 : 1. 21 : 23. 22 : 5. 

54 



426 

There are besides two substantive formations from 
the verb ; 2 Cor. 4 : 4, 6. or rather one that occurs 
twice, and which it may be well to examine. How r 
does "the bright shining of a candle give us light?" 
4. There is no necessity of any sort that we 
should so interpret the passage, as Friends, in their 
rapid a priori presumptions or inspiration- way, are 
wont with singular audacity to affirm its meaning : 
this however is their way ; a perfectly homogene- 
ous one ; like their first error and whole system. 

(1) It may be differently rendered, without any 
outrage to the laws of language, to read thus ; 
" which coming into the world, lighteth every man ; M 
where the participle coming is construed to agree 
with light and not with man. This version has had 
the sanction of many respectable names, and espe- 
cially of Dr. Campbell, that prince of philological 
learning. 

(2) It may simply refer to the catholic largeness 
of the new dispensation, whose jurisdiction is pro- 
perly " all the world/' and whose formal object is 
" every creature ;" without all distinction of nation, 
sect, or party ; it thus " enlightens " or shines upon 
or toward " every man that cometh into the world." 

(3) It may signify merely that every one that ever 
teas truly enlightened obtained from " the word " all 
his light ; which is plainly true. This appears pro- 
bable when we reflect on the obvious scope of the 
passage. The design of John, in the sublime in- 
troduction of his gospel, is evidently to describe 
and signalize the Eternal Word. He tells us 
one thing and then another, all tending to evince 



427 

his divine eminence and the consequent inferiority 
of all other lights as dependent on him. On this 
hypothesis, it may be thus paraphrased ; " never a 
man entered the world, who was truly informed in 
the things of God, but as the result of light commu- 
nicated by Jesus Christ." This view makes the 
sentence elliptical, and requires us to understand 
after it, " who ever was truly enlightened." It also 
accords with the known style of John. He abounds 
with ellipses and bold expressions ; and his style 
ought to be studied and understood, before a de- 
tached passage is hastily interpreted against the 
general scope of all his and all the other sacred 
writings. Take one instance. " All that ever came 
before me, are thieves and robbers." John, 10 : 8. 
This is a plain and a bold ellipsis. Supply the words, 
" professing to be the Messiah," after the first clause; 
and you have the meaning. These words the 
writer expects the reader to supply. Otherwise, 
Moses, David, and Elijah, to speak of no others, 
were " thieves and robbers." Friends sometimes 
literalize extravagantly. 

That one, or possibly all (for they are related) of 
these three renderings are the truth, I am confident. 
The style is dense ; the meaning manifestly gene- 
ral and comprehensive. With respect to the first 
version, it may be remarked that our translation 
( that cometh) is unauthorized by the original. In- 
stead of the relative and the verb there ought to 
have appeared simply the participle active of the 
verb come ; thus, " every man coming into the 
world." Then, if coming agrees with man instead 



4am 

of light, it proves too much — it proves that the man 
is enlightened in the act or moment of entering the 
icorld! If this be admitted, it may be inqnised 

what possible good can it do him ! and also, what 
becomes of him afterward \ Is he enlightened just 
then, once for all ! Is it a natal inserted light ! 
But if coming agrees with light, and grammatical 
law does in no way reclaim at the supposition/- then 
the first rendering seems valid. Also, the next 
verse favors the view. T:;e:e the light becomes 
personal, changing the neuter to the masculine : 
thus. •■ Hz was in the world, and the world was 
made by him. and the world knew him not." 

5. If the interpretation of Friends be correct, 
then it was antecedently the design of the Apostle 
and of the Holy Ghost to express their view : bat, 
supposing such design, is not the text an evident 
failure ! or at best a very imperfect expression ! I 
think it might be materially improved, especially by 
Barclay, who. when he wishes to express the same 
thing, uses such language as the following ; "the 
saving and spiritual light, wherewith every man is 
enlightened — there is an evangelical and sarins 
light and grace in all — the universality of the love 
and mercy of God toward mankind (both in the 
death of his beloved son. the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and in the manifestation of the light in the he 
is established and confirmed against all the objec- 
tions of such as deny it." I think, if I had been 
about to express the doctrine of Friends just there, 
that I should have used language, on such an im- 
mensely important article, like to this: Every hu- 



429 

man being since the fall, that enters the world, has 
an internal seed or principle of divinity in his heart, 
by attending to whose " objective manifestations " 
he comes to the saving knowledge of God; either 
with or without the assistance of outward means. 
This is surely their doctrine. It is also very differ- 
ent from that taught in the text. I consider it a 
"damnable heresy." 2 Pet. 2:1. 

This remark may be extended to the whole scrip- 
tures. Why were they written at all, since a para- 
mount rule, a superior light, pre-existed universally 1 
why was so much written, when ten sentences or 
none might have sufficed to put men upon their in- 
ternal resources? and why was such a book writ- 
ten, when the only possible use of any book could 
be to inform men of a superior light, which they 
could not see by its own beams, nor feel by its own 
fire 1 Those best acquainted with the sober con- 
tents of the whole Bible, are best qualified to an- 
swer these questions — especially if (which is a rare 
thing) they happen also to understand Quakerism. 

6. But suppose it proves the reality of a univer- 
sal inward light, shining constantly and yet near to 
suffocation, somewhere above or below the dia- 
phragm — not to be too nice on questions that tend 
to researches topical and physiological, I discern 
another difficulty. I could not descend into their 
mine, without a better safety-lamp than Sir Hum- 
phrey Davy could invent, against the detonation of 
subterranean gases ! I have no " faith in the 
effectual operation" of the non-descript glimmer 
within. 



430 

Why 1 Plainly, because an old man might believe 
in the existence of " a reed shaken with the wind," 
without making a walking-cane of it. Even if the 
light within exists, and if this text proves it, the 
very same connection proves that — it is not a rule 
at all or a totally insufficient one, and in either case 
disproves the doctrine of Friends. For (1) it is 
not discernible by its own light. " The light shin- 
eth in darkness ; and the darkness comprehended 
it not." Hence the ministry is necessary, by the 
word of God to teach men ; as John " was sent to 
bear witness of that light," else undiscoverable. 
But (2) John did not point out that light ; the idea 
of such a splendor or spark within, seems never to 
have entered his mind. He testifies of Jesus 
Christ, points to " the Lamb of God," and tells the 
people to "behold "him. v. 15-36. Hence (3) the 
word of God is the rule, and this light, whatever 
else it is, is plainly no rule at all ; but that word is, 
led by which, we see the light and walk in it. I am 
here not explaining the text, so much as confuting 
their view of it. (4) The light, construed by ad- 
mission as that of Friends, is plainly inefficacious. 
Not one in fifty millions of its subjects ever knew 
of any such thing in them, or even thought they did. 
Hence it is insufficient and ineffectual. It is not 
" able to make us wise unto salvation," without be- 
ing ■ outwardly' taught by Friends what to do with 
it ! Hence it cannot be so superior to the " holy 
scriptures " as to take precedency of them and re- 
duce them to the rank of " a secondary rule." (5) 
Soberly, ice allege that there exists no supernatural 



431 

light in men ; and consequently, as the word of God 
is the supreme law, the action of the living minis- 
try commending that word to our cordial and prac- 
tical regards, is reasonable and requisite. But 
plainly the whole connection including the text, 
" excellently and evidently " shows no inward light 
in men or inward light at all. Least of all does it 
support the heretical madness of a rule in men 
superior to the inspired scriptures : and on the 
whole, it is certain that there is not a particle of 
distinctive Quakerism in that noble chapter — 
which some have dared to defame by calling it 
" the chapter of Quaker light !" 

It may seem strange to all but Friends, or those 
who know them, that I have spent so much time in 
correcting their interpretation. But a few words 
of error, especially when widely circulated and de- 
voutly believed, require many words to refute them. 
What an encyclopedia of voluminous toil would 
it properly require to follow Barclay through the 
almost 600 octavo pages (densely printed — as this 
is not) of his elaborate work, and refute all the 
specious theological nonsense and error with which 
an unprejudiced christian reader can see that it 
abounds ! 

The only remaining passage to which Barclay 
refers for " excellent and evident " proof, of a uni- 
versal inward light in depraved sinners, " dead 
in trespasses and sins " as they walk on the foot- 
stool of God, which is cursed for their sake, Gen. 
3 : 17. 6 : 5, 11, 12, is found in Titus, 2 : 11. " For 



432 

the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath ap- 
peared to all men, teaching us," &c. 

I know exactly how they use this text, and how 
much they fondle it, and how often their inspiration 
starts from its list to run the race of folly, fiction, 
forgery and — devotional sin ! Often have I heard, 
and seen, and wondered, and been mightily con- 
vinced and moved, as many another deluded igno- 
ramus was, while some spiritual sooth-say er, male 
or female, " borne sublime upon the cherub wings 
of ecstacy " and soaring beyond all truth and evi- 
dence, was inspired to convey to us its true import 
exegetical. Often, as I well recollect, have I been 
solemnly duped, as well as others, with the fallacy. 
Does any one say, Well ! forgive them. We are all 
liable to make mistakes. We must bear with one 
another. Answer, I bear them any thing but per- 
sonal ill-will; God is witness : and in this sense, I 
pardon them with all my heart, for deluding my in- 
fancy, infatuating my education, and jeoparding my 
soul — and for doing more mischief to some of my 
own flesh and blood yet steeped profound in the 
spell of their delirium ! I can compassionate and 
would kindly repair the mistake of a fellow mortal, 
black or white. But when he dares to charge his 
errors and his moral agency identified upon his 
Maker ; make him alone accountable for them ; and 
claim the impunity of assumed, and most falsely 
assumed, inspiration ; and this is, in cool and un- 
exaggerated fact, their universal claim when- 
ever they preach ; I feel as if a calm reprehen- 
sion merely of their fault were criminal in me, es- 



433 

pecialJy as the error is of a kind at once so delete- 
rious to the interests of souls, so dishonoring to the 
great God, so impalpable to the populace and even 
to the more intelligent of the general community. 

Their argument now to be examined is much on 
this wise : Here it hath " appeared to all men ;" 
that is, " the grace of God that bringeth salvation " 
hath : but how hath it so appeared 1 Have " all 
men " the scriptures and other outward means 1 not 
so ! but all men have the witness of the Spirit in 
their hearts ; and in that temple of the heart has this 
grace appeared, &c. Then they appeal to their 
hearers and apply their version, by confounding the 
mere actings of conscience (armed it may be with 
some remembered passages of " the word of God ") 
with the agency of the Spirit in all men: and say, 
Hast thou never felt something that reproved thee 
in doing wrong, that commended thee in doing right, 
and that could not be bribed or " removed into a cor- 
ner f And so forth to the end ; while listening 
hundreds are convinced, refreshed, and — deluded. 
They often make episodes at such a time, when a 
lucid interpretation moves that way their bowels, in 
praise of the scriptures : as "given forth" by that 
light ; as an outward testimony to be sure ; but still, 
one in which the doctrine and views of " ancient 
Friends" are "excellently and evidently" mani- 
fested ; and as being, on the whole, "a secondary 
rule" of considerable respectability. 

But it is time to explode their fallacy. It may be 
premised that the text truly yields them not the least 
particle of support. The abstract proposition, that 

55 



434 

such " grace hath appeared to all men," I fearlessly 
pronounce to be as flat and certain an impossibility 
in point of fact as is the monstrosity of transub- 
stantiation. But still I should not so assert its fal- 
lacy were it not for this cardinal fact — that THE 
PASSAGE IS FALSELY TRANSLATED. 
There is no such proposition in the original. Genu- 
ine inspiration NEVER taught such a sentiment, 
since the birth of time or before. Does the reader 
say, How are Friends to blame for that 1 I answer, 
they are not to blame for that. It was done before 
they were born ; or George Fox either, eleven years 
before the important epoch of his birth. But— what 
is inspiration that is not to blame for blundering 
most egregiously, where a little honesty with the 
school-taught " gift of tongues " perusing the ori- 
ginal, exclaims, why no such proposition is there ! 

It is perhaps an error, though comparatively of 
no importance, to render the adjective, one word, 
acotyipiog, "that bringeth salvation." It seems ra- 
ther too strong. Still, its strict English synonyme, 
salutary, is not strong enough. It means " tending 
to salvation ;" and perhaps "salvation-bearing," as a 
compound epithet or qualifier, were nearly the sense 
of the original, 

In grammar, theology, and fact, I have now a 
graver error to expose. Why is the word, " ap- 
peared," made to govern (as if it did in the Greek) 
the phrase, " to all men 1" It does not ; and it can- 
not be so construed legitimately. The Greek does 
not say that it " hath appeared to all men ;" but it 
says that it is "salutary or salvation-bearing to all 



435 

men," wherever it comes, or (like the rising splen- 
dors of the sun) wherever it appears. 

Admit a digression here, (such an oasis is grateful 
to the christian traveller in the sandy desert of con- 
troversy,) to ask, What if men should respond to 
the gospel appositely and heartily wherever it ap- 
pears 1 Is it not what God cordially desires them 
to do 1 It would bear salvation into their bosoms 
universally ! It would roll its volume of blessedness 
gloriously round the globe ! It would emparadise us 
all in its large enclosures, as primeval Eden could not 
our first progenitors ! And whose is the fault that it 
fails of this splendid result \ Rom. 9 : 32, 33. The 
gospel is in no sense at fault. Still, how glorious, 
and [in grace how pre-eminent, is that discriminat- 
ing sovereignty, supervening just here, "according 
to the election of grace !" Rom. 11:5. 

I will render it, as nearly as our idiom will admit, 
(and that is very near, in this instance,) precisely 
as the words occur in the original, though necessa- 
rily with diminished force and certainty ; thus : 
" For hath appeared the grace of God, which is sal- 
vation-bearing to all men, teaching us," &,c. In 
the Greek the word hath appeared (E7te<pavyi) occurs 
first of all in the sentence ; and cannot in any right 
way affect the syntax or the sense of "all men;" 
which occurs at the end, in the dative, plainly go- 
verned by the adjective which I have rendered "sal- 
vation-bearing." If there is any defect in this evi- 
dence, it is wholly relative. It respects simply the 
fact that ordinary readers cannot appreciate an ar- 
gument drawn from the Greek language. Still, or- 



436 

dinary readers may believe the facts which I allege ; 
and no scholar, tyro though he be in Uteris graecis, 
can help seeing the truths of the facts, if he will 
open his Testament at the place- But if the facts 
are true, so are the inferences : this any common 
mind of common honesty can well discern ; and 
all that is ' excellently and evidently' proved, by the 
passage of Barclay's inspired and confident quota- 
tion, is — that the inspiration of the Quakers is sor- 
ry imposture, and that the word of God yields them 
no support. Quakerism is NOT Christianity. 

The apostle had been mentioning relative du- 
ties, and enjoining their performance on different 
classes and conditions of men, in the previous con- 
text. He had specified " aged men, and women, 
young women, young men, servants, masters," 
and others : then the text is introduced which de- 
clares that " the grace of God hath appeared ;" 
that it brings salvation " to all men ;" and that it 
"teaches us," &c. Mind, reader, it is one thing 
for salvation to be brought to you ; and another 
for you to accept it. Tendency is one thing ; ef- 
fect another. Yet both are necessary to a realized 
salvation. Again, what a dreadful error it is, which 
the gloss of Friends, from the mere surface of a 
mistaken and unskilful rendering, maintains ! Fare- 
well, all missionary hopes and efforts ! " The grace 
of God which bringeth salvation hath appeared 
to all men !" This proposition, as such, is ab- 
solutely and eminently false ! In the previous chap- 
ter, verse 3, it is said that God hath " manifested his 
word through preaching ;" but this is doubtful or 



437 

superfluous, if it is manifested in every heart ; if 
it hath actually " appeared to all men " in their 
minds ; if it hath a universal location in that 
dark interior ! I cannot help censuring the error ; 
and blaming, in the name of Jesus Christ, the peo- 
ple that propagate it. It is a dreadful forgery against 
the life of souls. Its central point, its fulcrum, and 
its rest, that saving grace has " appeared to all 
men," is a most palpable falsity ; and deserves 
to be displayed, that it may be known by those 
who are now " ignorant of his devices " and blindly 
accessary to his homicidal reign, who " was a 
murderer from the beginning." And yet I know 
that if the evidence takes hold of a Friend, it will 
draw blood ! How can he give up his faith in the 
" effectual operation," and the " objective manifes- 
tations," of a " universal inward light V 9 How ad- 
mit the serene delusion of " early Friends V 9 How 
withdraw his confidence from Barclay, whose per- 
formance in his esteem has been such a master- 
piece as to non-plus forever the whole " CLERGY, 
of what sort soever, unto whose hands his volume 
may come ; but more particularly, the doctors, 
professors, and students of divinity in the univer- 
sities and schools of Great Britain, whether pre- 
latical, presbyterian, or any other ;" to whom it is 
thus pompously addressed, with all the holy defiance 
of a man whose inward light renders him at least 
infallible ! 

Having gone through the examination of the 
illustrious proof-texts to which he refers us, in the 
end of his " sixth proposition," as if they were not 



438 

all witnesses against him only, I shall conclude this 
chapter with the inspection of some others ; almost 
as illustrious and as powerfully in their favor, as 
those we have just considered. Some stars are so 
brilliant and beautiful that it requires a practised 
astronomic eye to see it, if they do not belong to 
the first-magnitude class. I here claim again to 
speak as a witness ; and shall mention some that 
occur indeed in their books, but which I have more 
felt in their public ministrations, and which now I 
know to be nothing but stupefactions of the truth — 
as they inspire and enunciate them. O what a spec- 
tacle for angels to weep at, is — a large Quaker 
meeting of deluded souls, believing in things that 
have no existence ! and disbelieving, as priest-craft, 
the demonstrable realities of God! and trepanned, 
the whole of them, with the conceit of immediate 
inspiration, as the infallible light of their miserable 
dreams and devout hallucinations ! Will George 
Fox defend them in the day of judgment 1 Will he 
be their "advocate with the Father 1" " But if any 
man be ignorant, let him be ignorant." 1 Cor. 14 : 38. 
" A portion of the Spirit is given to every man to 
profit withal ;" as I have often heard them say, and 
then dilate on the imagination. It is so quoted fre- 
quently by Fox, Penn, and others. Some however 
quote the passage as it is, 1 Cor. 12 : 7. " But the 
manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to 
profit withal." Their meaning is plain. It is that 
every one of us is distributively furnished with a 
quantum suffictt of inward light, as a starting capi- 
tal for spiritual augmentation and "profit" to our- 



439 

selves ; that this is a gift of the Spirit in us all uni- 
versally, not only " every man" but every one of 
the species, of whatever age, sex, or description ; 
and that the grand business of life is — to walk by 
that internal light as our " more excellent way," our 
chief and paramount rule in religion ; the word of 
God being sublimely postponed to it. So say Mar- 
tha Rowth, Sarah Grubb, Job Scott, Robert Bar- 
clay, and ancient Friends, Hence Quakerism 
makes its regards chiefly concentre every way to- 
ward the very penetralia of the soul, the blazing 
focus of the light within ! And why not 1 This 
is consistency. 

Quam Juno fertur terris magis omnibus unam 
Posthabita coluisse Samo : hie illius arma, 
Hie currus fuit : hoc regnum Dea gentibus esse, 
Siqua fata sinant, jam turn tenditque fovetque. — Virg. 

The goddess this is said to have preferred 
Above all lands alone ; and to have cared 
Less for deserted Samos : here her arms, 
Her chariot here, her treasures, and her charms. 
This for the nations she designed the port ; 
The world's chief glory and its loved resort. 
Would but the fates permit ! and hence she tends 
And cherishes its interests and defends ! 

Excuse the bathos of the application. It is like 
falling from the chariot of the sun, into the inward 
light (to say nothing of the fire) of the crater of 
Vesuvius. I am not sure but a little of the ridicu- 
lous may be of service. And if so, no thanks to 
me ! No invention of mine has the right to be 
credited. I can say with Young as pompously, 



: 



440 

1 find my inspiration in my theme : 
The grandeur of my subject is my muse. 

Soberly, however, / am not inspired at all ; and 
shall proceed in a common sense way, as Friends 
do not — why should they 1 — to show them, or others 
as the case may be, that the passage in question 
belongs all to " the steeple-houses and the world's 
people and hireling priests ;" at least that it is none 
of theirs. It is not felonious to reclaim one's own 
from pillagers ; however " sincere " they were in 
rinding what was not lost, or in making mistakes 
systematically in the way of their vocation. But 
who can forgive inspiration for making mistakes 1 
Had I that plenipotentiary gift of God, I would care 
nothing for critics of any sort, nor stoop to ask cle- 
mency of the intellect, the feelings, or the con- 
science of the reader. 

Take a few specimens of high pretension from 
the fountain head. Only a few, where hundreds 
similar, w T ith disgusting repetition, are seen. It is 
not generally believed how high their claims rise. 

" I saw," says Fox — meaning by plenary inspira- 
tion, "that the grace of God, which brings salva- 
tion, had appeared to all men, and that the mani- 
festation of the Spirit of God was given to every 
man to profit withal. These things I did not see 
by the help of man, nor by the letter, though they 
were written in the letter : But I saw them in the 
light of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by his immedi- 
ate Spirit and power, as did the holy men of God by 
whom the holy scriptures were written." On the 



441 

same page he says, " When the Lord God and his 
Son Jesus Christ sent me forth into the world to 
preach his everlasting gospel and kingdom, I was 
glad that I was commanded to turn people to that 
inward light, spirit, and grace, by which all might 
know their salvation and their way to God ; even 
that Divine Spirit which would lead them into all 
truth, and which I infallibly knew would never de- 
ceive any." Here is inspiration, infallibility, and 
full equality with apostles and prophets " by whom 
the holy scriptures were written!" Again, "The 
Lord God opened to me by his invisible power, how, 
* every man was enlightened by the divine light of 
Christ.' I saw it shine through all, &c. This I 
saw in the pure openings of the light without the 
help of any man ; neither did I then know where to 
find it in the scriptures ; though afterward, search- 
ing the scriptures, I found it." Is this the kind and 
degree of inspiration that must be excused and com- 
passionated for mistakes, blunders, lying, and sor- 
cery] for vending " damnable heresies " in the name 
of God 1 for deluding thousands of silly and credu- 
lous persons, the unstable and the ignorant, and 
sometimes the educated and the respectable 1 Is it no 
sin to poison the waters of the sanctuary \ None — 
but I forbear! I write for sober and unprejudiced 
readers ; and am willing to rest the appeal with 
them whether one can have too much zeal in the 
exposure and extirpation of such a system 1 It is 
not " an iniquity to be punished by the judges ;" but 
it is an iniquity of aspects and relations infinitely 
terrible, ff?" To expose their inspiration, as the 

56 



442 

centre of their system, is one chief design of this 
publication. I view it as spiritual falsehood, sor- 
cery, and delusion — almost without an equal in the 
world. Modern cheats and inventions are quite in- 
ferior. Mormonism is more gross and revolting. 
St. Simonism, with its " family," is palpably ridicu- 
lous and false. But Quakerism is more specious, 
more seraphic, more impalpable every way, more 
refined, a better counterfeit, more imposing : but in 
some respects more criminal, more destructive and 
subverting than either! 

In respect to the true sense of the passage, I re- 
mark, 

1. That "every man" in that place, does not 
mean every human being ; but every one of those 
only, concerning whom demonstrably the apostle 
speaks : every christian, or every member, and es- 
pecially every officer, of the church of God. Read 
the context and take the drift of his homily. He 
speaks to the church and of the church collectively, 
as " the body of Christ" with its many " members ;" 
and each member, as appointed to a peculiar office ; 
and each office, as differing in form and in magni- 
tude, in honor and in importance, from the others ; 
and all the offices, as having a common scope, a 
common spirit, and a common glory in Christ. 

2. Besides, "the manifestation" given is not a 
passive one; not an objective revelation made to 
us: but an active manifestation made by us; "the 
manifestation of the Spirit " to others. It were bet- 
ter rendered or paraphrased thus ; " The duty and 
office of manifesting the mind of the Spirit to others, 



443 

and so of diffusing his homogeneous light in this 
dark world, is confided responsibly to every one of 
you, to every member of the body of Christ, in this 
and all coming ages. True, all have not the same 
office, nor each an office of honor equal to that of 
others ; still, all are honored, all are obligated, all 
are called and qualified for some appropriate service 
in the church ; each is " necessary " to the others : 
and by all in different ways, the Spirit is ' mani- 
fested,' and his influence diffused." The original 
word, rendered " the manifestation," v\ (pavepaGig, oc- 
curs only in one other place ; where the sense is 
quite parallel and perfectly clear : 1 Cor. 4 : 2. 
" by manifestation of the truth," i. e. actively man- 
ifesting it, " commending ourselves to every man's 
conscience in the sight of God." A preacher has a 
noble office of " manifesting the Spirit," confided to 
him ; and a poor, sequestered, pious old woman, 
such as my eye at this moment mentally sees, on 
her couch of debility, or in her chamber of privation, 
a prisoner, (I mean a real individual — and many 
others there are,) has an honorable office also ; 
manifesting the Spirit in a way of holy exemplifica- 
tion, of cheerful and lucid faith in Christ, of patience 
and pain, of resignation, constancy, prayer, and 
words of grace, " seasoned with salt, that minister 
grace to the hearers," and that are " good to the 
use of edifying." Eph. 4 : 29. Col. 4 : 6. 

3. The end of this distribution is declared, npog 
to av^tyepov, " for the common benefit ;" or, as Dr. 
Macknight has it, " to each is given the manifesta- 
tion of the Spirit, for the advantage of all." This 



444 

is very diverse from the view of Friends. Accord- 
ing to them, it is, as I said, a private capital at 
starting, to be improved for the individual behoof 
of its possessor in every case ; it is that without 
which we should scarce be accountable, and with 
which our grand business in life is — 

" To turn our optics in upon't. 

# * # # # 

" Strange too that men of inward light 
" Dont draw bonds and mortgages by't I" 

If this is ridiculous, I cannot help it ; it is the 
folly of Quakerism, a monstrous spiritual hoax, that 
more injures thousands than telling them of it can 
injure any. Clear is my own conviction that the 
good of souls and of society requires its exposure ; 
and that / am " manifesting the Spirit," according 
to the office given me, in some humble degree, 
when I hold it up to the scorn of conscience and 
the abhorrence of mankind. I do it " for the ad- 
vantage of all ;" or, the common benefit. 

We may here see the causes that freeze the feel- 
ings of Friends in respect to the christian charities 
of the day. They believe that "the grace of God," 
the very grace " that bringeth salvation," hath ac- 
tually " appeared to all men ;" and that every hu- 
man being has an inserted quantum or " manifesta- 
tion of the Spirit :" and if we or the apostles be- 
lieved so — why, what silly dotards, to " go into all 
the world and preach (audibly proclaim and orally 
communicate) the gospel to every creature," at such 
hazard, pain, and cost of every sort ! Hence their 



445 

equivocal love, (with very few exceptions,) rather 
their ill disguised antipathy, to Bible societies and all 
such institutions of purely spiritual charity ! Hence 
I endeavor to show the real or more potent moral 
causes of their armed neutrality. All however ought 
to concur with me and do the same. Christians are 
one. I might anglicise the original word, rendered 
" to profit withal," and say that christians are a sym- 
pherian society ; a spiritual corporation, for mu- 
tual aid and mutual action, against a common foe, 
and with a common motive, bond, and ultimate re- 
ward. Glorious community ! Blessed common- 
wealth ! " How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob ; thy 
tabernacles, O Israel ! Surely there is no enchant- 
ment against Jacob, neither is there any divination 
against Israel : according to this time it shall be 
said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God 
wrought ! Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and 
cursed is he that curseth thee !" One reason that 
Friends adduce or feel, why they are so sparsely 
and so seldom seen in the operations of the Bible 
cause, is — the peculiar testimonies given them to 
maintain ! A better version of the matter is — their 
abandoned sectarianism ; the misrepresentation (not 
" the manifestation) of the Spirit " in their charac- 
teristic way ; the important duty of sustaining their 
clanish singularities ! And pray, do they think it 
the best way to fight — to keep out of the way ! can 
they best " maintain " their singular way of speech, 
behavior, and attire, and other important testimo- 
nies, by withdrawing from their presence whom 
such lucid examples and protests as theirs were 



446 

given on purpose to instruct or improve or warn 1 
What martyrs of a peculiar order, these modern 
ones, for the sake of " weighty testimonies !" The 
fact is, they have ordinarily too much good sense 
or morbid sensitiveness, not to be ashamed — as 
they certainly are, and in this I praise them — of 
their own testimonies, in good and intelligent so- 
ciety ! They have a great many ingenious circuities 
and evasions, by which to slip along with their " tes- 
timonies," without collision, and without manifest- 
ing a single ray or particle of light from the illumi- 
nated interior, that might as well be " under a 
bushel" at once, for all the demonstration it makes! 
" For whatsoever doth make manifest is light." 

Truth is properly the monopoly of no man. I 
have no private creed in religion ; nor do I suppose 
that any man ought to have. Truth is the testi- 
mony of the Spirit, given for " manifestation " uni- 
versally ; and when purely manifested, " the Spirit" 
is manifested too, just as much and identically. 
With the light of the Spirit of God I identify myself 
morally ; the whole of me ; to live and to die, for 
this world and the next. O for grace to be thus 
purely and perfectly devoted ! The man that coun- 
teracts that light, is no ally of mine, whoever he 
may be ; I am his moral enemy, because I oppose 
him as such, toto caelo, toto orco 53 ; and " go the 
whole " in the argument. " What concord hath 
Christ with Belial I or what part hath he that be- 
lieveth with an infidel ?" 2 Cor. 6 : 15. And we 
may add emphatically ; " what communion hath 
light with darkness !" or legitimacy with usurpa- 



447 

tion and imposture % Let the insipidity of a semi- 
christian answer. 

This text of " manifesting the Spirit," as refer- 
ring to the duties of " every man " in the church, 
is one of immense practical concern ; rich in its 
moral treasures ; a grand theme for a sermon ap- 
posite to the present state of the churches ; and 
worthy of large and thorough application : but I 
forbear, having other ends that now invite me to 
their pursuit. 

The passages of scripture which Friends pervert 
are very many. Their leaders do it, " and hold 
themselves not guilty ; and they that slay them 
say, ' Blessed be the Lord ; for I am rich :' and 
their own shepherds pity them not." It were easy 
for me to write another book, of texts disabused of 
their corrupting glosses and shameful sophistry. 
To sophisticate however is " not a vain thing " for 
them ; it is their " life." Quakerism must die the 
moment it understands the subject and learns to 
reason fairly. I will select a few passages, say 
three ; of whose gross perversion I have been ex- 
perimentally connusant ; and the last in the series 
of which is worthy of distinguished consideration — 
since it seems to me, as certain as any mathema- 
tical proposition that can be named, to explode the 
foundations of Quakerism, and to demonstrate the 
supremacy of the scriptures forever. 

" He that believeth, maketh not haste." That is, 
he sits " still " in Friends' meeting. A kind old 
Friend, a preacheress, for whom indeed I feel a re- 
ciprocal kindness, (for she is very " sincere " in her 



448 

errors,) once quoted it to me with great tenderness, 
just before I left the society. It meant, pause, " get 
still," and show the temper of him " that believeth," 
by — holy inaction, serene stagnation, a do-nothing 
kind of piety ; avoiding " the activity of the creature" 
and the learning of the colleges ! Ah ! this tenderness 
of a refined and elegant, a really kind and clever 
Quaker lady ! It is very persuasive. It is a charm of- 
ten of sovereign fascination and success. It is much 
more potent than argument. I bear them record 
that their ladies are, some of them, characteristically 
refined, chaste, and stainless in purity of behavior; 
possessed of qualities that adorn private life, gild the 
social circle with a lustre of comparatively innocent 
delight, improve the manners and sentiments of 
youth, and constitute about as fine a substitute for 
the religion of the gospel as one will find any where ! 
But — to the text. It occurs in Isaiah, 28 : 16. Com- 
pare it with Rom. 10 : 11. 1 Pet. 2 : 6. Its true sense 
is plain, as quoted in the New Testament. Friends 
quote it wrong in form, as well as substance. It is, 
"He that believeth, shall not make haste." It is 
future, not present ; and it means, he shall not 
retreat, run away in clandestine "haste," "be 
ashamed," or "'confounded," in the day of judg- 
ment : that is, he shall not, who " believeth on Him" 
that is the foundation-stone of Zion, laid there as 
the basis of the church by the Eternal Master 
Builder. It has no affinity with the softness and 
the insipidity of what they chiefly value and inspire. 
There is another, which they quote as it is not, 
in favor of their light, with very great unction and 



449 

frequent enlargement. It respects " the great in- 
ward Teacher " of their faith ; as one that cannot 
" be removed into a corner," they say. Paul was 
once put into " a basket " and " through a window " 
" let down by the wall; and in that way escaped 
the hands" of "the governor under Aretas the 
king." This was as bad to the poor Damascenes 
or the christians of that city, as " removing their 
teacher into a corner." 

Quere, Is the cavity interior, where the elegant 
little light is inserted, and where it burns almost 
suffocated sometimes by "the activity of the crea- 
ture," is it triangular, quadrangular, oval, spherical, 
cylindrical, or of some other and better propor- 
tions 1 It gets into " a corner," it seems, only by 
removal. But we will not press the inquiry. We 
have a promise to consider. " Thine eyes shall see 
thy Teacher;" i. e. the eyes that see the flame of 
the inward light. " And thine ears shall hear a 
word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye 
in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye 
turn to the left." Isaiah, 30 : 20, 21. To cut short 
the riddle, and some treasured anecdotes of curious 
fact that I could pleasantly rehearse in its solution, 
the word teacher happens to be plural in the text ! 
and the original more evidently demonstrates that 
outward human teachers are meant, in both 
places where the word occurs in the 20th verse. 
Thus ?pniD and Z\ niD-fhV. How they dislike the 
plural ! In view of the denounced invasion and 
calamity of the Jewish nation, and especially of the 
metropolis, the prophet consoles the church with 

57 



450 

this assurance : " Though the Lord give you the 
bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet 
shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner 
any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers : 
and thine ears shall hear," &c. How unfortunate 
in proof-texts are ancient Friends and modern ones 
too ! We may infer from this passage the follow- 
ing things : that competent religious teachers are 
meant ; that it is a great and precious gift of God 
to have them ; and that it were better to lose all 
temporal riches than the privilege of their ministra- 
tions, which are to be esteemed an appropriate com- 
pensation in times of worst calamity. Jer. 3 : 12-15. 
It puts out the light that is in every man, superior 
to the scripture as a rule ! At least it takes no note 
of that inserted little focus that " boasteth great 
things." How confounded I once saw a really es- 
teemed and honored Friend, by producing the pas- 
sage in a parlor and reading it coolly to the eye 
and ear ! Confounded, sorry, frightened ;— but " of 
the same opinion still !" 

I now come to the last text to be considered 
here ; and to which I have already alluded. It is 
found iu 2 Pet. 1 : 19. After quoting it, I shall re- 
mark on its history as connected with Friends ; and 
then on its meaning, as subverting their system. 
The translation is in the main good ; but I will 
change it a little, by way of expressing more truly 
the sense of the original. " We have also the pro- 
phetic word made more firm : to which word ye do 
well taking heed, as to a light that shineth in a dark 



451 

(and dreary) place, until the day dawn, and the star 
of morning rise in your hearts." 

That Friends do not feel quite certain that they 
know what this means, is evident in one instance at 
least ! and yet it is an awkward position for them 
to take, on more accounts than one. In an edition 
of Dr. Maclaine's Mosheim, published in " New- 
York, 1821," I find near the end about 45 pages of 
" vindication of the Quakers," smuggled 54 into 
the fourth volume ; where, among other documents, 
is one of " Joseph Gurney Bevan," of London, in 
which he alludes to this text, in connection with 
George Fox's career, and makes in the margin 
the following note : "It seems by the way, not 
easy, in our translation, to find what constitutes 
the comparison, in this passage." Poor man, "not 
easy " — had he been trying hard to find it, preacher 
as I suppose he was ! A very little sane contem- 
plation of the context, I should judge, would relieve 
his difficulties, even if he could search only " in 
our translation." But his mighty master Fox was 
in the same predicament or a worse one. Bevan is 
commenting, in connection with the note above 
cited, on Fox's exemplary and singular trials in re- 
ference to this noted text. In the journal of Fox, 
he records his own exploits in his own incompara- 
ble way ; and I ask leave to transcribe the total 
paragraph. The importance of the principles in- 
volved will warrant it. 

" As I went toward Nottingham on a first-day in 
the morning, with friends to a meeting there, when 
I came on the top of a hill in sight of the town, 1 



452 

espied the great steeple-house ; and the Lord said 
unto me, ' Thou must go cry against yonder 
great idol, and against the worshippers therein.' I 
said nothing of this to the friends, but went with 
them to the meeting, where the mighty power of the 
Lord God was amongst us ; in which I left friends 
sitting in the meeting, and went to the steeple- 
house. When I came there, all the people looked 
like fallow ground, and the priest, like a great lump 
of earth, stood in his pulpit above : he took for his 
text these words of Peter, • We have also a more 
sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that 
ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark 
place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in 
your hearts.' He told the people this was the scrip- 
tures, by which they were to try all doctrines, reli- 
gions and opinions. Now the Lord's power was 
so mighty upon me, and so strong in me, that I could 
not hold ; but was made to cry out, •' Oh I no ; it is 
not the scriptures ;' and told them it was the holy 
Spirit, by which the holy men of God gave forth 
the scriptures, whereby opinions, religions, and 
judgments were to be tried ; for it led into all 
truth, and so gave the knowledge of all truth. 
The Jews had the scriptures, yet resisted the 
Holy Ghost, and rejected Christ, the bright morn- 
ing-star. They persecuted him and his apostles, 
and took upon them to try their doctrines by 
the scriptures, but erred in judgment, and did not 
try them right ; because they tried without the Holv 
Ghost. As I spoke thus amongst them, the officers 
came, took me away, and put me into a nasty stink- 



453 

ing prison; the smell whereof got so into my nose 
and throat that it very much annoyed me," Thus 
far George. 

We may now observe certain things that explain 
the text ; that demonstrate the perfect correct- 
ness of the preacher, called by his invader and re- 
viler "a great lump of earth," in the position he ad- 
vanced ; that conclude absolutely against the inspi- 
ration of Fox and show of consequence his wicked 
fanaticism ; and that make the passage before us a 
luminous protest of heaven against their whole sys- 
tem, and in favor of the scriptures as the only book 
of inspiration in our world and the highest rule of 
action in religion. If these things appear, one may 
ask the nature of that morality that disturbs wor- 
shipping assemblies of christians in the very time 
and action of divine service ; that pronounces the 
service "not divine ;" that raises riot and confusion 
in the house of God ; that molests (and this it did 
in numerous instances at first, and as long as it 
could conveniently or with impunity, and would 
now do with the worst kind of persecution if it 
dared) others in their conscientious public devo 
tions ; and that, after having provoked the inter- 
ference of the civil authorities, complains of severi- 
ty, and uses its ostentatious sufferings to elicit the 
sympathies of the ignorant, to practise on the weak, 
and to facilitate the imposture of its own delusion ! 

I do not say that Friends never suffered wrong- 
fully ; or that justice was not often perverted in 
their punishment ; or that they were not cruelly 
persecuted in many instances: but T do say that 



454 

they were too often the aggressors, and the consci- 
entious spiritual persecutors of the first part ; and 
that such persecution as theirs, characteristically 
theirs, is perhaps the most intolerable in the world, 
as themselves would now evince, I fear, if theirs 
were the power and the ascendency in the state 
— for we may hardly trust the " tender mercies " 
of men irresponsibly any where ! I say also 
that in either hemisphere they were punished by 
the civil arm less for their doctrines as religionists, 
than for their practices as religionists, against the 
rights of others and the laws and order of civil so- 
ciety, going " naked for a sign," 55 disturbing the 
worship of others, religious railing and abuse, 
calumniating all modes and ministers of religion 
except their own, and denouncing others in the 
coarsest and most offensive style. What could be 
worthier of censure from "the officers." and of 
their power interfering in the case, than the con- 
duct of Fox in the occasion himself describes ! 
But that occasion was only one of hundreds ; in all 
which lie was inspired ; the inspirer only was ac- 
countable ; he was identified with God ; and to ani- 
madvert on his ways and doings were sacrilege! 

" We have also the- prophetic word made more 
firm " or permanent : Ss^atarepov ~ov 7ipo<pr~ixov 
/.oyor. --More firm" — than what! What is the 
other subject of comparison, which is disparaged 
in the argument ! Friend Bevan, we remember, 
thought it ••not easy to find." A fox hunter of 
this sort, is often at fault when the game is near 
him, and quite visible to those who prefer the light 



455 

of heaven to inward darkness. Read the previous 
verses, where it is as plain as day ; and as " easy 
to find " as it is to attend to what " the Spirit saith 
to the churches," even "in our translation." Alas! 
how hard for some illuminees " to find " the sense 
of revealed truth ! The reason is plain. The re- 
cipe of their darkness and mistake, the amulet of 
their preservation from its influence, is that forgery 
and folly — " the light within !" well may they take 
up the lamentation; "Therefore is judgment far 
from us, neither doth justice overtake us ; we wait 
for light, but behold obscurity ; for brightness, but 
we walk in darkness. We grope for the wall like 
the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes : we 
stumble at noon-day as in the night ; we are in 
desolate places as dead men." I have no words in 
which to express my grief, shame, pain, and indig- 
nation, at a system of delusion so deceitful and so 
fixed with its talons in the blood of its prey ! 

In the previous verses of the chapter, 16-18, Pe- 
ter refers to the glorious scene of the transfiguration, 
which himself and James and John were the privi- 
leged triumvirate to witness. See Matt. 18 : 1-9. 
Mark, 9 : 2-10. Luke, 9 : 28-36. These three were 
several times selected to witness scenes of privacy 
and wonder, which they were especially to attest 
afterward to others, for the confirmation of their 
faith. Matt. 26 : 37. Mark, 5 : 37. So here. The 
noble apostle tells what they saw and what they 
heard ; " when there came such a voice to him from 
the excellent glory, ' This is my beloved Son, in 
whom I am well pleased.' And this voice which 



456 

came from heaven we heard, when we were with 
him in the holy mount." O privileged place ; dis- 
tinguished hour ; exalted and glorious converse ! 
What would we give to share such transcendent 
favor ! So near to heaven ; " eye-witnesses of his 
majesty ;" hearing the very attestation of the voice 
of God ! 

While his readers might so indulge or frame 
their sentiments, the apostle interposes, as if to 
say ; " The pageant was indeed gorgeous and as- 
tounding. I almost swooned at the glare of its 
radiance ; and knew not what to do or where I was. 
But let none envy us ; none especially who have the 
Bible ! There " the prophetic word is " made " more 
firm," more permanent, more complete for every 
desirable purpose. Jesus Christ is its all pervading 
theme : and instead of a voice so transient, so se- 
cluded, so dense and brief in its comprehensive im- 
port, commending him to your confidence ; you have 
a volume of accomplished and accomplishing truth, 
equally divine, equally from heaven, equally intelli- 
gible. Peruse it, meditate it, follow it forever." 

The prophetic word as spoken on mount Tabor, 
and the prophetic w 7 ord made "more firm" in the 
scriptures ; these are plainly the subjects of com- 
parison : as Friend Bevan himself might have seen ; 
or any other ignorant man that could look at the 
context, and take the scope or simply the continuity 
of the argument. Does any man doubt that the 
Bible is meant, by the " light that shineth in a dark 
place 1" The immediately following verses make 
it obvious : "knowing this first, that no prophecy of 



457 

the scripture is of any private interpretation ; [or 
origin, as some prefer ;] for the prophecy came not 
in old time by the will of man ; but holy men of 
God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 
verses 20, 21. This we ought to "know first" 
or chief! 

I have said that the true and plain sense of this 
text is ruinous to the pretensions of Quakerism. 
For— 

1. It shows the superiority of the scriptures as a 
rule. The voice miraculous that he had just pane- 
gyrized to our wonder and our faith, is less firm, 
less permanent, less full, less satisfactory, less every 
way to be desired, than the prophetic word of scrip- 
ture. Will any one now say that his own ' inward 
light ' is superior? But grant for a moment that it 
is — how it demonstrates the ignorance or mental 
weakness of the apostle, who in commending his 
readers to a superior light to that on the mount, 
never mentioned the glorious rule of Friends, which 
makes the scriptures " secondary" by its own nobler 
effulgence ! He surely knew nothing of it. 

2. It shows the practice of primitive christians ; 
" whereunto — ye take heed ;" in walking by the rule 
of scripture. It shows also the commendation of 
God for that cause. " Ye do well," says the apostle ; 
encouraging their adherence and piety. But he 
does more. He puts an imprimatur upon the excel- 
lence of the scripture, and its spiritual utility in the 
scheme of salvation, its subserviency in the constitu- 
tion of God throughout the whole process of piety 
in the soul, that seals its value as supreme ; that 

58 



455 

shows it. from the very nature of its office and its 
use, the paramount rule in religion ; and that shows 
as well the nature of religion, vital, genuine, sober, 
enlightened, and true religion, as distinguished from 
all counterfeits ; for we "do well taking heed to its 
light" as long as we sojourn in this " dark place ;"' 
and ••' till the day dawn and the star of morning 
arise in our hearts." The morning-star, ;i sure 
pledge of day, that crowns the smiling morn," is 
used in scripture as the sparkling* image of hope. 
Rev. 2: 28/ 22: 16. OaL'l : 27. lTim. 1 : 1. It 
rises here i; in the heart;" implying delighted and 
purified affections in religion, as connected with 
the influence of hope in Jesus Christ. 1 John, 3: 3. 
It is plain that this experience is consequent upon 
rightly u taking heed" to the light of scripture. 
" The dawning of the day" is much cotemporane- 
ous in nature with the rise of the star of morning ; 
that beauteous phosphor ($a0$opog) of the dappled 
orient, that glittering harbinger of splendid da v. 
that bright precursor of the sun, shinins" in his o-lorvl 

I care not to analyze poetically or rhetorically the 
force and finish of the figures, picturesque and glow- 
ing and apposite as they are : but would say in 
brief, they evidently refer to the whole of experi- 
mental religion ; they claim the instrumental cause 
of scripture truth tor all that is genuine in our ex- 
perience ; they require us to elevate and honor that 

II light" as paramount ; and there is no reasonable 
fear of dishonoring the agency and office-work of 
••the eternal Spirit," by following •'•' what he saith 
unto the churches." respecting the end for which he 



459 

furnished us with his own thrice blessed word ! It 
appears evident that the figures, of the " day dawn- 
ing" and "the star of morning arising in our hearts," 
are in apposition; the latter being an explication of 
the former, and both referring to piety in this world, 
as viewed in connection with its consequent and cer- 
tain glorification in the next. Here at best it is but 
the progress or the perfecting of authentic hope ; it is 
comparative night or the dawning only, of the day 
of everlasting holiness and glory. " The way of the 
wicked is as darkness : they know not at what they 
stumble. But the path of the just is as the shining 
light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect 
day." Reader, do you hope on a death-bed to say, 
" I have fought a good fight,'' unless you can also say, 

" I HAVE KEPT THE FAITH V* If not, then ' TAKE HEED 

to the light that shineth in a dark place ;' and beware 
of false lights, inward lights, and blind guides — 
however smooth and affectionate they seem ! 

Errors not soon corrected : 
Though few learn not in riper years 
That man when smoothest he appears, 

Is most to be suspected. — Altered from Cowper. 

Give me a man of wisdom, of principle and moral 
courage, of honesty and steadiness. 

3. It represents the scripture as a most precious 
treasure, invaluable and solitary ; and the ruin of 
the world without it: "a light that shineth:" 
It shines steadily, purely, benignly, certainly, su- 
perlatively. And it is one, not many ; a unit, not a 
plurality ; its light is all homogeneous, unique, di- 



460 

vine. Besides, It shineth "in a dark place;" a 
place of darkness and pollution : ev avx'-^p^ tony. 
Such is our world. So God views all the inward 
light of men. Reader, suppose you were travers- 
ing, for instance, the tunnel of the Thames, or 
some hideous mine or cavern of the earth, or rather 
the catacombs of Paris ; were marching with one 
lighted flambeau only, along the well described but 
narrow path of that awful subterranean receptacle 
of " dead men's bones " if not of " all uncleanness ;" 
and had advanced some one or two miles of your 
way from the aperture of y oux facilis descensus, and 
were beginning to think of the returning process ; 
revocare gradum ; would you not look at the pre- 
cious light in your hand with a high and hearty 
estimate, "midst upper, nether, and surrounding 
darkness V How dependent you would feel on its 
friendly beams ! Now, suppose two strangers should 
appear, or two voices greet you in the dark ; one 
w T ould assure you of a superior light to be seen by 
just shutting your eyes and looking at the interior 
of yourself; the other would commend you to 
value that in your hand, as " a light that shineth in 
a dark place," to "take heed" to it, and trust no 
other medium of vision or of conduct, till you ar- 
rived at open day, or saw clearly the peering light 
of the aperture above : would you not require to be 
made very sure indeed of the comparative infe- 
riority of the light in your hand, before you would 
either throw it away or trust the other, in such " a 
dark place V There truly some visitors are said 
to have lost their way and left their own bones in 



461 

pledge to the ghastly populace around them. But 
what of that? To lose one's way as a pilgrim to 
the world of spirits ! to be guided wrong in our 
blindness by one as blind ! to be deluded of the 
path of life, and to forfeit our hope and our soul as 
the price of reckless credulity, " believing a lie !" 
This is terrible. — Often is it — history too. 

4. The preacher who took the text, and whom Fox 
so abused, interrupted, contradicted, while peacea- 
bly officiating in his own desk and to his own peo- 
ple, and according to his own and their conscience 

Of duty, WAS MOST CERTAINLY RIGHT IN HIS POSI- 
TION; he was telling the truth, the pure and proper 
sense of his text to his hearers ; and more truth 
than Fox ever told ; when that foolish and rash 
zealot commenced his offensive insolence, as " the 
Lord said unto " him ! This is evident from the 
showing of Fox himself. Whence, I would de- 
mand, with feelings of tenderness to them, 

5. What degree of silliness or sinfulness does it 
require to accredit his inspiration ! If here deluded ; 
if here demonstrated infallibly to have been a mere 
mountebank of spiritual fanaticism at large, and 
furious in annoying others and all others that would 
not follow him ; if here his certain converse with 
" the Lord " turns out to be an abominable decep- 
tion, a pre-eminently stupid falsehood : who knows 
that on other occasions, where he manifested the 
same temper, manners, principles, he was any more 
inspired 1 Where is the proof of his inspiration at 
all 1 Shall we go to his " miracles ,? to find it 1 
His " prophecy " certainly came " by the will of 



MS 

man." Tha: of •• the Holy Ghost" is of a kind 
every way different, superior, accompanied with 
complete rational evidence. 

The general assembly of the presbyterian church, 
at their annual sessions, A. D. 1804. passed the 
following declaration of their sober views on this 

>jecf : and if it had been legislated on purpose. 
it could not more aptly condemn the principles of 
Qu: .. as exemplified in this and like outra- 

ges of Fox and his similars of the society. - We 

:ng]y bear onr testimony against those persons 
who pretend to immediate impulses and revelations 
from heaven, those divine communications which 
were given only :o the prophets and apostles,, who 
were appointed by God to reveal to mankind the 
way of eternal life. When men presume that the 
Holy Spirit, contrary to the established order of 
Providence, interferes, by particular impulse, to 
direct them in all the common affairs ollile ; when 
they deem themselves to be impelled by him. to 
particular acts, or particular religious exercises. 

:rary to the established order of the gospel and 
the obvious duties of the moment ; when finally, 
they pi stead to miraculous powers or prophetic in- 
fluences and the foretelling of future events : all 
these are evidences of a wild enthusiastic spirit, 
and tend, eventually, to destroy the authority of the 
word oi God. as the sole rule of faith and practice." 
I bless God that such remains to be the unanimous 
averment and testimony of that large denomination, 
whose divisions are all on smaller and compara- 
tively in he points, for the most part : — and 



463 

whose very dissidence not more evinces the imper- 
fection of christians and even christian ministers in 
this world, than it demonstrates also, in respect to 
presbyterians, their common freedom of thought, 
their principled tenacity of right, their high common 
estimate of the value of truth, and their charac- 
teristic purpose, by the grace of God, to " strive to- 
gether " — and may it ever be " standing fast in one 
spirit, with one mind ! — for the faith of the gospel : 
and in nothing terrified by their adversaries ; which 
[fact of opposition for the sake of the truth] is to 
them an evident token of perdition, but to us of 
salvation, and that of God." I bless God, not only 
that I am converted, as I trust, from Quakerism to 
Christianity, but that I belong to this very denomi- 
nation of the church of Jesus Christ ! And my 
soul's most unsectarian prayer for all my brethren 
and fathers of the presbyterian church, is — that 
they may kindly and charitably appreciate each 
other ; that they may know and honor their high 
obligations to their Great Head ; and that divine 
prosperity may attend, preserve, and bless them 
all, forever. 56 

There may be some implication or confusion of 
the truth, in respect to what Fox avers in his speech 
about the Jews, and even the great men of their 
nation, rejecting the Messiah. But the sentiment 
that this resulted from their fondness for the oracles 
of God, is not merely gratuitous ; it is impiously 
false. " Had ye believed Moses, ye would have 
believed me : for he wrote of me. But if ye believe 
not his writings, how shall ye believe my words'!" 



4^4 

&gain, Abraham said unto him. If they hear not 
Biases and the prophets, neither will they be p - 
snaded thongh one rose from the dead." T::ey 
were so oecnpied in "teaching for doctrines the 
commandments of men 77 and in propagating their 
" own traditions," that they neglected " the word 
of God " and were (as they are to this day) as ig- 
norant of the real sense of the Old as of the N 
Teamen:. 

Bat I: ny man have not the Spirit of Christ, 
he is none of his.* Tme ; but what has this to do 
with u a universal inward light ! Tr a hght u in erery 
man V 9 It refers to saints alone, whom the Spirit 
of Christ hath marked and sealed for his own eter- 
nal kingdom I: criminates saints from "the 
whole world n that "lieth in wickedness.' , I: re- 
spects not the influence miraculous or extraordin- 
: but that which is through the truth, common to 
all saints in every age, producing "the fruit of the 
Spirit " in the living character : according to Gal. 
J y^-26. and E ': ?. I: is the Spirit influ- 

ential, not the Spirit personal ; it is not conscious 
converse, but moral purity produced ; it is not in- 
spiration, but holiness; not revealing new truth 
fresh to the mind, but bringing one to see and love 
the truth already •• written for our learning, that we 
through patience and comfort of the scriptures 
might have hope. 5 ' This is true of the subservie 
of the whole Bible. The Spirit uses his written 
truth as the medium of all his illumining and sanc- 
tifying influence. " For w : : isoje er i - : a m ere 
written aforetime." have a common relation to the 



465 

people of God. John, 17 : 17. Rom. 15 : 4. Now, 
if in this sense, Fox had avered that the rejectors 
of Christ had the scriptures insufficiently, not hav- 
ing also his Spirit ; and that if men had his Spirit 
they would not reject him ; his position were true : 
and after this truth possibly the moral instinct of 
Friends may be often blindly groping, when they 
know " neither what they say, nor whereof they 
affirm." This grace in the heart is piety. It is 
often called " the fruit of the Spirit ;" often by the 
name of some one of its multifarious branches ; 
often by the name of " the Spirit ;" because the 
Spirit of God produces and sustains it all. This 
grace is an indispensable in religion — universally. 
It is a qualification and a sine-qua-non of office not 
only, but of standing also in the church invisible. 
The Jews that rejected Christ were destitute of 
this qualification. But see how Fox confounds 
things ! With him the qualification of a judge, is 
a rule of judging ! As if the competency of Hale as 
chief justice, were the supreme law of the realm ; 
the statute-book being nothing to it ! " They took 
upon them to try their doctrines by the scriptures." 
Were it not then more presumptuous for them or 
others to " take upon them " to try Christ and his 
apostles by a still more holy and superior rule I 
For Fox makes the Lawgiver every where his su- 
perior rule; to which the scripture, that was " given 
forth " from that, is " a secondary rule !" Truly, it 
was no part of their sin or of ours to pay too much 
court to " the word of God, the sword of the Spi- 
rit ;" the universal instrument of his saving opera- 

59 



46G 

tions. " No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, 
but by the Holy Ghost." 1 Cor. 12 : 3. Certainly— 
and yet this text is just as much in favor of Friends 
as the others we have considered. The fact is in- 
contestable — do man can so say approvingly, wise- 
ly, knowing what he says, but by the Holy Ghost. 
The only question is — Hoic does he induce the re- 
sult \ With or without his written word 1 With- 
out it, savs Fox. So he came bv his knowledge, 
he tells us ; and we in part credit him. With it 
only, and in no other way, says the consistent chris- 
tian. A man who knows the testimony of the Spirit, 
" understandeth it," (Z\Iatt. 12 : 23,) loves it, trusts 
it with his heart, and gives his life cordially to its 
influence, is the one and the only one who can 
say "by the Holy Ghost" that "Jesus is Lord." 
He is a true christian. He walks by "the word of 
God," the scriptures, as his highest rule in religion. 
He owns the Lawgiver, as greater than the law ; 
but not as a greater law ! not as a law at all ! He 
has "the Spirit of Christ." He belongs to the glory 
of the species, the noble company "of whom the 
world was not worthy," the ransomed of the Lamb, 
the saved "in Christ Jesus," the legion of honor de- 
voted forever to the glory of the King of kings. 

It now occurs to consider, in relation to the Nu- 
ciferous aura' of Friends, 

8. The powerful decision of many passages 
of the word of god against it. 

After treating this branch of the subject, it would 
remain to despatch two others ; namely, accord- 
ing to original announcement, 



467 

9. The innumerable contradictions of that 
LIGHT as it shines from Friends ; and, 

10. The paramount office of scripture, ac- 
cording TO ITS OWN CLAIMS, AS OUR RULE IN RE- 
LIGION. 

Willing to condense, rather than amplify, the 
topics of discussion, I refer the ninth article mainly 
to the pervading exhibitions of this volume for some 
evidence of its truth : subjoining, that while the de- 
tails of that evidence would be sometimes in mini- 
mis, concerning things of small moment if not of 
frivolous import ; while I have letters on file receiv- 
ed from their inspired preachers, and have heard 
oral predictions from "the fountain-head" uttered 
concerning myself, which I have been spared to con- 
tradict and by the grace of God have lived to con- 
found : I forbear for the present to pursue a path of 
illustration which is very far from grateful to my own 
feelings and may be irritating to theirs. This pre- 
mised, I shall consider the eighth and tenth articles 
as one in substance ; treat them together ; and en- 
deavor to vindicate their common truth and related 
sentiment, by an array, apt though brief, of scrip- 
tural declarations inconsistent with the arch heresy 
in which all Friends are agreed ; and in which, as 
such, they must necessarily remain ; and which is 
of itself sufficient to require our non-recognition 
of their claims, whatever else they say, as profess- 
ing christians: — the arch heresy that denies the 
paramount relation of the scriptures as our rule in 
religion. 

"Christianity and the scriptures are essentially 



463 

associated. Without the latter, we should not have 
received the former. — In examining into the degree 
of authority to be attached to the scriptures, we are 
favored with a very direct appeal. We may go to 
the scriptures themselves." In these sentiments of 
an excellent cotemporary, 57 I need scarce record my 
own most hearty concurrence. It is more to the 
point to say, they suit our purpose admirably ; they 
are just such as the sacred volume, intelligently and 
devoutly and thoroughly perused, never fails to in- 
spire. What then is that "degree!" 

It is often said loosely by excellent writers, that 
the scriptures are our only rule in religion. This 
is not accurate ; it is incorrect. We have other 
rules ; as reason, experience, observation, history, 
the general facts of life, philosophy, the love of 
happiness, the light of nature, the moral sense, the 
maxims of wisdom, the law of the land, the precepts 
of morality ; and those innumerable laws, collateral 
and subordinate, which flow from these in endless 
ramifications and forms. But among many, among 
myriads or millions, one only can be supreme or 
paramount. I use the word paramount, because 
it is definite and apposite exactly to the grand idea 
to be conveyed — superior to all others. This 
is the sense in which the word is used ; attributing 
supremacy unrivalled to the authority of the in- 
spired scriptures, in the position, the Bible is to 

BE REGARDED AS OUR PARAMOUNT RULE IN RELIGION. 

Not only do I view the position as sound and de- 
monstrable ; but as fundamentally important. 
The only hope I can have for the salvation of a 



469 

Friend — I speak my own conviction as it is — re- 
poses in this one qualifier ; for ought I know he 
may be better in his feelings than his philosophy 
or the ordinary symbols of his creed. This I often 
fondly hope. Hence I think deliberately, and by 
moral necessity, that if his feelings ultimately put 
any other rule above "the word of God," and if he 
is as bad in his real principles as in his doctrinal 
statements, he is also "in the gall of bitterness and 
the bond of iniquity ; his heart not right in the sight 
of G d, and himself with no lot or part — as yet — 
in the matter" of salvation by Jesus Christ. Be- 
sides, if "the oracles of God" are not paramount, 
then some other rule is "above them ;" and what is 
that 1 " The scriptures cannot be the rule of faith, 
because they cannot give faith ; for faith is the gift 
of God, which overcomes the world." The rule of 
faith then is — God himself, because He can give 
faith l^r$ Hence the Bible can be the rule "nei- 
ther of practice, because it cannot distinguish of 
itself, in ail cases, what ought to be practised, and 
what not, since it contains as well what ought not 
to be practised, as what ought." The Bible then 
" cannot be the rule of faith or practice !" This is 
' orthodox' Quakerism: for, so says that inspired 
mystic, William Penn ! ! Again; "George White- 
head says, That which was spoken from the Spirit 
of truth in any, is of as great authority as the scrip- 
tures or chapters are, and greater, as proceeding 
immediately from that Spirit; as Christ's words 
were of greater authority when he spoke, than the 
Pharisees reading the letter." Penn here quotes 



470 

approvingly what Whitehead says. Hence Qua- 
ker inspiration "in any," is of greater authority 
than the Bible ; especially as it is fresher ! ! ! Hub- 
berthorn, another piece of inspired heresy, says, 
" The Spirit of God is the saint's rule, and that is 
greater than the scriptures ; and the rale of the Spi- 
rit of God is above the scriptures. '' An opponent 
had objected to him that, " The scripture was given 
by the Spirit for a rule :" to which Hubberthorn re- 
plies ; " This we desire a proof of, by plain scrip- 
ture, and till then we deny it." Humphrey Smith 
says, "God changeth not; and where doth the scrip- 
ture say, that the scripture is to be a rule to walk 
or be led by]" Edward Burroughs says; "that 
we own to be the rule of our conversation, which 
they [Abel, Moses, and others] walked by, the im- 
mediate Spirit of God which was before the scrip- 
ture was written. And all you who profess the 
scripture to be your rule, your own rule shall testify 
against you when the eternal judge judges you ; 
and they who witness that to be their rule which gave 
forth the scripture, walk up in the life of the scripture 
more than you all ; and you are proved to be but 
the Jew outward, who boasts of the ordinances 
from the letter, but persecutes them by slanders 
and false reproaches, who witness the substance." 
Another says, " This I witness to all the sons of 
men, that the knowledge of eternal life I came not 
to by the letter of the scripture, nor hearing men 
speak of the name of God." Dewsbury. I quote 
once more, from Fox; "the scriptures — will not 
give the knowledge of Christ. That which comes 



471 

from him and shines in the heart, doth give the 
knowledge of Christ the light ; the Jews had the 
scriptures, but had not the knowledge of Christ. 
Nothing gives nor makes manifest the knowledge 
of the Savior, but the light which doth enlighten 
every man that cometh into the world. And none 
can know Christ by the scriptures ; they testify of 
him ; but none can know Christ but by revelation;" 
that is, immediate revelation in one's own soul ! 
What could be more subversive of Christianity 1 

When I read such mysticising sophistry and pre- 
varicating infidelity, as the specimens above, I feel 
as if Quakerism was entitled to the horror of the 
whole community ; to the public execration of man- 
kind ! The scriptures "a secondary rule" — and 
then no rule at all, neither of faith, nor of practice, 
according to Penn — and then incapable of impart- 
ing the knowledge of Christ — and then adverse to 
(not homogeneous with) their higher rule — and 
opposed in influence to the light within — and re- 
duced to nothing by immediate revelation — and this 
made indispensable universally to faith and salva- 
tion — and the Spirit of God himself a rule of ac- 
tion and "the saints' rule" — and the fresh inspira- 
tions of these "deceitful workers" declared by 
Whitehead and Penn to be GREATER in autho- 
rity than the scriptures themselves — and the know- 
ledge of eternal life " witnessed " to be acquired 
independently both of scriptural revelation and the 
preaching of the gospel ! and these are the pro- 
phets of the devil who claim our charity and scorn 
our communion, and who vaunt themselves chris- 



472 

iians of utmost purity and genuineness, as well as 
preachers of soundness infallible and of furniture 
inspired ! Here a christian may well stand for his 
life. I cannot conceive what heresy is cardinal and 
infinitely pestiferous, if Quakerism is not such ! and 
only wonder that Christendom has cared so little 
for it I or endured so courteously a satanic delusion 
of the sort for scores of years ! The more I exa- 
mine it, the worse it shows. It is a system of sinu- 
ous sophistry ; a philter of deception, a chalice of 
sweetened poison. I should be unwilling to die 
till I had stood up as a witness against it, and writ- 
ten my solemn protest and warning for the pre- 
servation of others from its murderous snares ! If 
there happens to be a state eternal, a thorough and 
consistent mere Quaker may well wish that he had 
never been born! \\\ that world "Moses and the 
prophets" are more respected. There his arguing 
can no longer deceive others or himself. His pro- 
fane sophistry will be eternally overruled ; and his 
refined sorcery reduced to common-sense convic- 
tion. He may there too late discover — if he fails 
to do it here— that Jesus Christ meant something, 
by " hell-fire, where their worm dieth not and their 
fire is not quenched !" Mark, 9 : 43-50. 

It will aid our conviction of the just supremacy of 
the scriptures as our rule in religion, if we can as- 
certain, simply as an auxiliary fact, the estimate of 
the Jewish nation respecting them at the time of the 
appearing of Christ. "'How firmly we have given 
credit," says Josephus, "to these books of our own 
nation, is evident from what we do; for during so 



473 

many ages as have already passed, no one hath 
been so bold as either to add any thing to them, to 
take any thing from them, or to make any change 
in them ; but it is become natural to all Jews, im- 
mediately and from their very birth, to esteem those 
books to contain divine doctrines, and to persist in 
them, and if occasion be, willingly to die for them." 
Thus, Josephus, Philo, and others, speak of them, 
with ultimate reverence ; as " the scripture," or 
" holy scriptures," and " the divine scriptures." Thus 
Paul speaks of them to Timothy, who was educated 
by his pious mother in " the holy scriptures " of the 
Old Testament ; for then the books of the new were 
not written. Other proof to the same effect is at 
once abundant and not necessary. These senti- 
ments were common to the nation. It was the uni- 
versal public sentiment of the country. They knew 
of no superior rule to the word of God ; nor had 
such a refinement of error then appeared. 

Let it here be observed that this ecumenical per- 
suasion of his countrymen, Jesus Christ did no- 
thing to reprove ; but, on the contrary, every thing 
to enlighten, confirm, and establish. If this is so, 
the conclusion is inevitable. Let us examine the 
premises. In his sermon on the mount in the very 
outset and opening of his public ministry, Matt. 
5: 17, 18, he thus addresses a Jewish auditory; 
" Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or 
the prophets : I am not come to destroy, but to ful- 
fil." I ask — does this import "the secondary rule ;" 
or indicate any rule paramount to the scriptures, 
for us to honor in religion l He immediately adds 

60 



474 

" For verily, I say unto you, Till heaven and earth 
pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from 
the law, till all be fulfilled." Hence, the whole of 
the Old Testament, which comprehended all that 
was then written, is confirmed as a document of 
truth eternal, which is to be punctiliously accom- 
plished ; and this necessarily, as being more firm 
than the physical fixtures of " heaven and earth." 
This too the Savior teaches explicitly in the very 
commencement of his ministry, and to an immense 
congregation, " multitudes " from all parts of the 
land ; "from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from 
Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jor- 
dan." But why did he not reprove them for over- 
valuing "the oracles of God 1" a sin of which no 
evidence convicts them. For though their rulers 
and scholars sinned plentifully against "the oracles 
of God," yet it was in other ways than in the sen- 
timent of their paramount authority or the sacri- 
lege of textual mutilation. They practically neg- 
lected and transgressed them ; they vacated their 
meaning by glosses, superficial and erroneous ; and 
they superseded them by their manifold " tradi- 
tions," which in effect were criminally promoted to 
the priority or the primacy of ail. But they were 
a paragon and an example to mankind, in preserv- 
ing pure the integrity of the text and in sentimental- 
ly regarding their inspired books as the highest rule 
in religion. Christ himself adverts, not reprehen- 
sively, to their almost doating scrupulosity, in num- 
bering the letters and the points, as well as the lines 
and larger divisions of the scriptures ; in what he 



475 

says about "one jot or one tittle" not passing 
" from the law till all be fulfilled." He alludes evi- 
dently to the Yod, the smallest letter of their alpha- 
bet ; and to any smaller mark or apparently incon- 
siderable point, originally connected with the sense 
of inspiration : and he alludes as well and approv- 
ingly to the accurate pains-taking of their learned 
men, in the preservation of every particle of the 
authentic scriptures. But he goes farther. In the 
very next verse he makes a practical application of 
the doctrine. "Whosoever therefore shall break 
one of these least commandments, and shall teach 
men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom 
of heaven : but whosoever shall do, and teach them, 
the same shall be called great in the kingdom of 
heaven." He here speaks mainly of evangelical 
teachers, his own true ministers ; and declares of 
them that each shall be graduated in his kingdom 
according to the respect he pays to the sacred writ- 
ings, even the most inconsiderable portions or 
enactments of their code : he shall be exalted as 
"great" or degraded as "least," according to the 
respect he shows them, even the comparatively mi- 
nor parts. What then are we to think of those who 
put them down en masse, exalting a certain interior 
light, said to be universal, "above" them? and at 
the same time professing to be incomparably the 
best friends of the scriptures in the world ! I would 
say of them ; so did not Christ. He plainly had 
no such view as theirs cardinally is. His views are 
totally incompatible with it. The air and the savor 
and the scope of his doctrine is far different from 



476 

theirs. When they pretend that Christ came to in- 
troduce a dispensation more spiritual than the scrip- 
tares, and far enough above them, according to then- 
own most erring notions of the Spirit, they show 
him as coming to dissolve, annul, "destroy, the law 
and the prophets ;" so that not " a jot or a tittle" 
remains what it was, in majesty pre-eminent, as the 
immovable legislation of Jehovah. I add ; he here 
inculcates the grand idea, sublime in its simplicity, 
of the unity of revelation — the unity of the scrip- 
tures—" the unity of the Spirit." Though the por- 
tions are different, and the parts multifarious, they all 
constitute collectively one revealed system; the 
code of inspiration ; the written infallibility of hea- 
ven. Hence, they w 7 ere then complete as consti- 
tuting the Old Testament : but consummate as a 
whole, only in that connection with the New, which 
makes both to be one volume of perfect and 

PARAMOUNT LAW IN THE MATTERS OF RELIGION. 

This evinces the cumulative majesty of the doc- 
trine of Christ, when applied to the whole volume,, 
the Greek and Hebrew scriptures combined! Jesus 
Christ familiarly called the scriptures, as such, " the 
word of God ;" and one of his apophthegms it was 
that " the scripture cannot be broken." But a 
higher rule he no where inculcates or implies or 
recognises ; neither did his Jewish countrymen, 
whose sentiments on that point it was the spirit of 
his total ministry to sanction and diffuse. 

In this sermon he elsewhere utters a monition, 
which ought to be commended to the serious intelli- 
gence of Friends : " If therefore the light that is 



477 

in thee be darkness, how great will the darkness 
be !" 58 chap. 6 : 23. The context shows that this is 
moral darkness only, resulting from pride, preju- 
dice, and the obliquity of the feelings in religion. 
Wrong motives often obtain the ascendency of right 
ones, and doubly darken the mind. The worst per- 
version that error accomplishes is when it procures 
darkness to be mistaken for light, and so to be re- 
ligiously maintained to the very last. This is, I 
verily believe, the precise condition to which the 
whole system of Friends most efficaciously tends to 
reduce its votaries. " There is a way that seemeth 
right unto a man," according to his own inward illu- 
mination at the time ; if it seemed wrong to him, 
wrong as it absolutely is, he would not follow it ; 
" but the end thereof" — and every way has an end, 
though all travelers do not think of it; and thought- 
lessness or presumption is no proof of safety : " the 
end thereof are the ways of death." This is death 
eternal — "the end of them that obey not the gospel 
of God !" Friends often assume that the way is 
right, because it " seemeth" to be ; and hence they 
trust their own wisdom, and "the light that is in" 
them leads them speciously to ruin. It is right, ac- 
cording to their paramount rule ! and it is the way 
of " death" in the end, according to the law of God ! 
Here is contrariety. 

Let us recur to one of " the prophets," all whose 
words must be "fulfilled," according to the preacher 
on the mount. Isai. 8 : 19-22. The twentieth verse 
is itself, notwithstanding the impertinent salvos and 
palliatives of Barclay, a record of ruin to the light 



47S 

of Quakerism : " To the law and to the testimony ; 
if they speak not according to this word, it is be- 
cause there is no light in them. "^3 The law means 
plainly, not the mystic law of Friends that is 
" within" us; but in general the written scriptures, 
the ••' word " and M the testimony " of " the oracles of 
God." Thus says Christ to the lawyer; " What is 
icritten in the law! how reddest thou !" Luke, 10 : 
26. See also Hcsea, S : 11. 12. The law more gen- 
erally indeed referred in strictness to the pentateuch 
alone : when joined with " the testimony " however, 
the whole scripture is plainly meant. Now, mark the 
appeal, to which the Holy Ghost directs the faithful 
of the nation ; that they should promptly and per- 
petually make it ! From ichat is it to be made ! I 
answer, from mysticising pretenders who had found 
out --'a more noble and excellent rule " — very much 
like if not identical with that of Friends. '-'And 
when they shall say unto you, •' Seek unto them that 
have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep 
and that mutter :' should not a people seek unto 
their God ! for the living to the dead I To the 
law and to the testimony." The appeal then is 
from these sorcerers ; whom the Spirit of God de- 
nominates ••wizards." dec. not as though they oicneci 
or anticipated the title. 'When they thus practise, the 
appeal is to be instantly made : and to make it. ob- 
serve, is described as ••'seeking to God!" and this 
in contradistinction to the course of listening to 
these spiritual mummers and impostors ! Should a 
people resort to such upstarts ! nay, on the contrary. 
•• should not a people seek unto their God!" well * 



479 

granting that they should ; how is this to be done 1 
Answer, by resorting " to the law and to the testi- 
mony !" by carrying the immediate and the ultimate 
appeal to the written law of the kingdom ! Besides ; 
how contrary this to the common gloss of Friends, 
that calls the scripture "a dead letter," and their 
own light, a living oracle ! The question was, shall 
we seek to these spiritual sages'! The Spirit of God 
answers in effect ; no ! you shall seek to God ; as 
he speaks to you in the scriptures. Would not any 
nation seek to their own God l And should you go 
" for the living to the dead ;" from the lively oracles 
to the stupid gastromancy (see Septuagint) or in- 
ward light, of men " dead " to wisdom and deceit- 
fully counteracting God 1 Bring them and their 
muttered mysticisms to the divine criterion, and it 
will ruin them. 

"Yes ! but if they had only attended to the clear 
1 inshining ' of the light in their own hearts" — ! To 
be sure : but Isaiah was not informed on that sub- 
ject. He had not been " renewed up " to the sub- 
limities of George Fox in his day! True : And, what 
is worse, Dr. Scott seems to be very little before him, 
if not precisely in the same leading-strings of the 
spiritual nursery ; for he says, " Philosophical illu- 
minators and enthusiastical pretenders to new reve- 
lations, which are not to be judged by ' the law and 
the testimony,' are alike concerned in this decision.'' 
To be plain ; this is just what I solemnly think that 
every mere Quaker will "believe and tremble," 
when he stands at "the judgment-seat of Christ;" 
if his light be not sooner renounced ! " They shall 



480 

fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, 
and look upward. And they shall look unto the 
earth ; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness 
of anguish ; and they shall be driven to darkness." 
vs. 21, 22. 

"He that despised Moses, law, died without mer- 
cy under two or three witnesses : of how much 
sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought 
worthy," who disobeys the completed canon of in- 
spiration ! see Luke, 16 : 29-31, where Christ de- 
clares that he who has the former, or the Old Tes- 
tament alone, and refuses to "hear them," would 
not "be persuaded, though one rose from the dead !" 
Alas! it was not "inward light" that ultimately 
convinced the wretch, who said, "I am tormented 
in this flame !" and who is pictured before us, by 
the great master of moral painting, as a neglecter 
merely of "Moses and the prophets," before he was 
conveyed to the eternal world, where he "lifted up 
his eyes, being in torments !" 

Man is an accountable being, prior to the exten- 
sion or the relations of grace in Christ Jesus. 
Grace is given to save a sinner ; not to make a 
man accountable ! he was accountable before ; in 
the very structure of his being ; in the very organi- 
zation of his mind ; in the faculties and endow- 
ments of his mental constitution. Accountable he 
is to all eternity : he remains such forever in hell or 
forever in heaven ! and forever on principles of abso- 
lute law. Now, the oppugnation of the whole rebel 
species, against this absolute accountability, is the 
soul of all the heresy in the world ! Friends re- 



481 

gard grace as necessary to accountableness ; and 
hence they take special pains to provide "every 
man" with a precious little inserted viaticum or 
modicum of gracious influence; "by attending to 
the inward teachings of which light " he comes to 
" see clearly " all the mysteries in the universe ! 
Hence, whenever they search the scriptures, it is, 
as Fox confesses, having made these discoveries an- 
tecedently, and without "knowing that they were to 
be found in them ! Is it any wonder then that their 
light should enable them to see marvellous things 
in the Bible, which its author never meant to put 
there 1 things that really unprejudiced learners could 
never find] and that profound scholars in "the law 
of their God" know it no where contains'? In the 
first chapter of Romans the apostle assigns, as the 
reason for his strong desire "to preach the gospel" 
in that imperial city, the fact that in it alone is re- 
vealed the doctrine of justification by faith : aver- 
ring that the light of nature indeed was luminous, 
in respect to the being and perfections of the " God- 
head ;'' the accountability and depravity of man ; 
and the justice of God, as his moral governor and 
righteous condernner for sin. In the second chap- 
ter he proceeds to show, at large, the absolute ac- 
countability of till men, jews and gentiles, as they 
shall be seen "in the day when God shall judge the 
secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my 
gospel." verse 16. This he does by showing that 
each man believes it in reference to every other one ; 
witness his censures, his criticisms, his criminations : 
and these common, mutual, universal ! He says al- 

61 



452 

so that these demonstrate (what philosophers call 
the laic of nature) the accountable constitution and 
moral organization of every individual of the spe- 
cies, whether heathen, christian, or jew. He says 
that hence those without law "are a law unto them- 
selves ; who show the work of the law written in 
their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, 
and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing, or else 
excusing one another.'' But Friends '-'see clearly" 
that this means the workings of "the good princi- 
ple r ' in them ; namely, their own interior taper 
burning all beauteously, and darting its radiations 
"'through all!" I only remark, by the way, that 
their light is evidently cursed with the spirit of per- 
version and error ; "conclusion retrograde and mad 
mistake !" In the second of first Corinthians the 
apostle is showing mainly the necessity every 

WAY OE A REVELATION FROM GOD, Such as the apOS- 

tles and prophets were empowered to produce : but 
Friends stupifv the sense of the whole argument 
with the mysticism of their light ! In the third of 
Romans, having shown the accountability and crimi- 
nality of all men, he inquires; "What advantage 
then hath the jew I or what profit is there of cir- 
cumcision ! much every way : chiefly, because 

THAT UNTO THEM WERE COMMITTED THE ORACLES OF 

God."' Here, I ask, if the inward light be a para- 
mount rule, where after all is the demonstrated ad- 
vantage, as "much every way:*' He proceeds; 
"'For what if some did not believe !" believe what ! 
"the effectual operation of the light that is in eve- 
ry man !" no! but "the oracles of God.*' Well; 



483 

" shall their unbelief make the faith (faithfulness) 
of God without effect 1 God forbid ! yea, let God 
be true, but every man a liar ; as it is written, That 
thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and might- 
est overcome when thou art judged ;" or, when thou 
judgest. Here we see that men are accountable 
absolutely ; that they perish when they have the 
signal "advantage" of the scriptures, because they 
do not "believe" them; that the veracity of God 
does not depend for its honor on their piety that 
credits it ; that unbelief is really a sin and a damn- 
ing one ; and that the "advantage" of the means 
of grace is intrinsical and absolute, even when it is 
not improved, or when, through perversion of un- 
belief, it becomes an occasion of augmented guilt 
and ruin, "a savor of death unto death! 5 " If 
Friends hate this, it only identifies them with that 
very class to whom said Jesus Christ ; " And ye 
will not come to me, that ye might have life !" Ye 
have " both seen, and hated, both me and my 
Father." Let them beware of " the way of Cain" — 
and of Paine ! 

" Making the word of God of none effect 
through your tradition, which ye have delivered ; 
and many such like things do ye." Mark, 7 : 13. 
Jesus Christ here calls the scripture " the word of 
God ;" which Friends are too pious and too wise 
to do, " through their tradition, which they have 
delivered ; and many such like things do they !" 
Besides, to " make it of none effect " in any way, is 
here branded as distinguished crime ! The jews 
did it by false interpretation : Friends do it more 



484 

effectually and by a wholesale process, by defaming 
its superlative dignity, denuding it of its proper 
title, and recommending men to "sit still" and 
listen to the informations of " a more noble and 
excellent rule " within them ! Again, I say an 
anathema, in the name of the Lord, upon their 
arch and horrible heresy ! I can scarcely conceive 
a more foolish or a worse one. 

" But continue thou in the things which thou 

HAST LEARNED AND HAST BEEN ASSURED OF, know- 
ing of whom [of GOD] thou hast learned them ; 
and that from a child thou hast known the holy 
scriptures, which are able to make thee wise un- 
to SALVATION THROUGH FAITH WHICH IS IN CHRIST 

Jesus." 2 Tim. 3 : 14, 15-17. I should want the 
competency of the inward light divinely endorsed, 
in language better than this, before I would 
desert " the holy scriptures " for its profane and 
wildering elucidations ! I should wish to see it 
written, by inspiration as certain, in language tan- 
tamount to this : " but still there is ' a more noble 
and excellent rule,' greatly superior to the holy 
scriptures, ' a light in every man,' that is ' above 
them' and far more useful and certain in the direc- 
tion of souls to salvation and to God." Instead of 
any such diabolical folly and falsehood, either here 
or elsewhere to be found in " the holy scriptures," 
they are elevated above all proper competition and 
equality ; they are declared to be " able to make 
us wise," and that the best kind of wisdom and the 
best degree of it too ; " WISE UNTO SALVA- 
TION ;" and this, in the simple and rational way 



485 

of beliemng them heartily ; " through faith ;" and 
this faith is said to be " in Christ Jesus," for he is 
the pervading theme of them all ! Besides, Timo- 
thy is congratulated on this " chief advantage " of a 
jew, the possession of " the oracles of God ;" and 
that he had known them " from a child." 

It is not the style of inspiration to conform to our 
technicalities of thought. It exhibits great truths, 
facts, realities ; and leaves every man, accountably 
and at the peril of his soul, to make his own infe- 
rences : yet so, that a spirit really unprejudiced 
and ductile to the divine instructions, will be led, 
substantially, progressively, infallibly, to the know- 
ledge of the truth. " Good and upright is the Lord : 
therefore will he teach sinners in the way. The 

MEEK WILL HE GUIDE IN JUDGMENT : AND THE 
MEEK WILL HE TEACH HIS WAY. All the paths of 

the Lord are mercy and truth, unto such as keep 
his covenant and his testimonies. For thy name's 
sake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity ; for it is great. 
What man is he that feareth the Lord 1 him shall 
he teach in the way that he shall choose. His soul 
shall dwell at ease ; and his seed shall inherit the 
earth ;" or the land, i. e. the land of promise ; typi- 
cally, heaven. " The secret of the Lord is with 
them that fear him ; and he will show them his 
covenant." Ps. 25 : 8-14. I now ask if the pas- 
sage in Timothy is not perfectly decisive \ I think 
it is. What want we more? What other rule, 
what " more noble and excellent " one do we need, 
who have one divinely commended to us, as " the 
holy scriptures THAT ARE ABLE TO MAKE 



483 

US WISE UNTO SALVATION, THROUGH 
FAITH THAT IS IN CHRIST JESUS !" It 

is impossible to conceive of a rule superior, either 
in its competency or its evidence ! And how do 
Friends contrive a superior one 1 I answer, by 
profanely substituting the legislator for the law ; 
making the Spirit of God a rule of action ; and so 
honoring the greater, as to supersede the less — to 
detrude it from its proper dignity as if it was not 
" able to make us wise unto salvation, through faith 
which is in Christ Jesus !" I also wish to ask the rea- 
der, especially if he happens to belong to the rare 
company that value their souls, the following ques- 
tions : (1) Are you sure that as much can be said 
of the interior light of Friends t is it " able to make 
us wise to salvation " — ( by faith in its effectual opera- 
tion V (2) By what evidence can you be rationally 
convinced of it 1 or will you believe it on the naked 
dixit of a Quaker 1 (3) Ought you not to have 

MORE AND GREATER EVIDENCE in favor of the 

" light," than you now have so amply in favor of 
" the holy scriptures," before you venture so to desert 
them for it, as to call them "a secondary rule" and 
give to it the desired pre-eminence 1 (4) Have you 
not a duty to do for others, as well as yourself, 
in resisting a " damnable heresy " that would de- 
grade and in effect annul forever " the holy scrip- 
tures," in behalf of a moon-strack non-entity ima- 
gined to reside " in every man " and fabled to be 
vastly superior to them ! (5) Have you well con- 
sidered the greater confirmation of the excel- 
lency of " the holy scriptures," as our paramount 



487 

rule in religion, in that the apostle proceeds imme- 
diately to state, vs. 16 and 17, that the whole 

SCRIPTURE IS DIVINELY INSPIRED ; and is PROFITA- 
BLE for all the ends which the chief rule in reli- 
gion could be desired to answer 1 " profitable," 
not injurious or useless or of small utility, to those 
noble ends ! " profitable for instruction, for convic- 
tion, for correction, for education in righteousness ; 
that the man of God might be complete, accom- 
plished perfectly for every good work." 

If he is so accomplished by "the holy scrip- 
tures," what other and superior rule does he at 
all require? Quakerism is here "weighed in the 
balances, and found wanting." Its proper epitome, 
and its future epitaph, is TEKEL. But Friends 
are afraid of the man's hand that writes their doom 
upon the wall — afraid calmly and closely to see the 
evidence, that the scriptures themselves furnish, in 
contrariety and in extinction to their light ! Barclay 
refers indeed to the verses just quoted ; but in what 
way 1 I answer, jesuitically and shamefully alone ! 
He glides by the noble and the glorious passage, as 
if it had little or no relevancy to the argument : he 
translates it wrong, and omits the first two uses 
specified, for which " the holy scriptures " are de- 
clared to be "profitable." Thus; "All scripture 
given by inspiration of God, is profitable — for cor- 
rection, for instruction in righteousness," &c. And 
pray, is it not profitable for " doctrine V ' and also for 
conviction, " reproof," or perhaps more correctly 7tpog 
^/^forCC/^polemical authority and decision : since 
the word is properly forensic, referring to arguments 



488 

used in a court of judicature for the demonstration 
of points contested? The scripture is thus the ar- 
biter of controversy. But mark the serpent coiled 
in the " silence" of his lillies ! He perverts the 
sense and alters the proposition ; reasoning in a 
circle, and making the premises uncertain, and 
changing two powerful propositions into one dilute 
and quakerized ; to the utter ruin of the sense ! In 
his hands it informs us simply that " all scripture 
[that is] given by inspiration of God, is profitable " 
for a thing or two ! instead of the true proposition, 
that refers, as a solemn imprimatur of the Spirit to 
the canonical perfection of his own work, to " the 
holy scriptures," and pronounces them de facto, 
first, to be " given by inspiration of God ;" and se- 
cond, to be " profitable " for all the ends requisite 
and competent to a paramount rule in religion ! But, 
it may be said to me ; Did you not make a transla- 
tion for yourself? and if so, why not he also 1 and if 
he might, why not omit the is where it first occurs, 
since it is not in the original ! I answer, why insert 
it in the second place, " is profitable," since neither 
there is it found in the original 1 Why not omit it 
till after the whole, thus elongating and qualifying 
the subject of the proposition, and postponing the 
predicate — forever ! The fact is that the proposi- 
tions are two ; in the original distinctly marked, and 
in our version correctly given. The grammar of 
the Greek obviously requires two ; and the con- 
junction 7:ai and demonstrates it, though Barclay, 
in his " sincerity,'' ventures wholly to omit that 
word, and so, designedly or otherwise, emasculates 



489 

the sentence and palms upon his reader a most 
sleepy and silly forgery ! One of his ends in this 
can be seen, yea two of them, and perhaps more. 
As he has serenely changed the sense ; (1) It has 
no particular applicability to " the holy scriptures," 
as the received volume of God, known and honored 
by the whole church, then and since, as well as be- 
fore. (2) It is a proposition of total insipidity, as- 
certaining practically nothing ; as if he had said, 
light is light, and good to see by ; whatever is di- 
vinely inspired is divinely inspired, and furthermore 
of considerable utility on one or two accounts ; " all 
scripture given by inspiration of God is profitable" — 
Is it 1 what a discovery ! I should rather doubt it, in 
some instances at least, if I could judge only from 
the influence allowed to its truth by certain luminous 
characters ! (3) As he has widened the circumfer- 
ence of the passage, and set it to spinning in the air 
round an uncertain centre, it becomes rather " pro- 
fitable " than otherwise to Friends ! for now all 
their illumined writings, that were " given forth by 
that that made the scriptures," are equally within its 
sanction and enclosure ! " All scripture given by 
inspiration of God, is profitable :" hence the writings 
of George Fox, Robert Barclay, William Penn, Job 
Scott, and others, men and women, more than we 
can number, become canonical at once ! Quere — 
Would Friends have any special objection to the 
whole world walking by Barclay's Apology, as 
their paramount rule in religion 1 What a fine time 
indeed, if all the world would thus come to the 
'light! 1 And would it make a fine eternity too? 

62 



490 

(4) While I truly leave it with God what were his 
motives in this perversion and imposture, I charge 
him in effect with the ends alleged, and suppose that 
in this I only show, as it is, the prevaricating nature 
of Quakerism. It is not evidence that makes the 
system, that constitutes, upholds, or diffuses it. I 
could fill a volume of commentary with similar crit- 
icisms on similar perversions of its own ; perversions 
belonging to the light, as children to a parent, in its 
other exhibitions of " darkness visible." 

It were easy to multiply instances of scriptural de- 
claration, utterly at variance with the huge heresy 
here opposed : but I will conclude this last division 
of the subject with the consideration of one that 
seems apposite to the place as well as suitable to 
the argument. I allude to those solemn words with 
which the sacred volume concludes ; Rev. 22 : 18- 
21, especially the former verses of the four. On 
these, without caring to quote them in order, I sub- 
mit the following observations. 1. They exhibit a 

SOLEMN SEALING OF THE SACKED CAJVON. (1) I assume 

here that the Apocalypse was written last of the 
books of the New Testament ; and though I know 
that biblical antiquarians have differed on the point, 
I do not know that the opposite arguments have any- 
solid respectability. (2) The sanction respects the 
sin of changing or mutilating the sacred text, so as 
to corrupt Christianity, and pass off a forgery against 
heaven on the credulity of men; and this either by 
adding or subtracting, or in any other way vitiating 
its divine integrity. Hence, as it respects the quan- 
tum of the sin and its nature, no reason can be 



491 

given why it should be interpreted restrictively to 
this particular book ; since the sin is much the same, 
to whatever portion it refers of the sacred canon. 
It is like forging or erasing the signature of God. 
The inference is that at all events it extends morally 
to the whole Bible. (3) It imports that more inspi- 
ration is neither necessary, nor probable, nor at all 
to be expected. (4) It requires us to take heed to 
what it thus seals, as sufficient for its end and of 
infinite utility to us. " Blessed is he that readeth, 
and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and 
keep those things which are written therein : for the 
time is at hand." 2. The four concluding verses, 
taken in connection, prospectively refer to the end 
of time, to the second coming of our Lord. The 
sealing of the canon evidently contemplates the in- 
termediate ages : it is sealed finally, as the finishing 
of inspired prophecy ; " always, even unto the end 
of the world." This I take to be both evident and 
important. Other scriptures also, and I may say 
the total tenor and scope of prophecy, declare the 
same thing. It is precisely analogous to the manner 
and the certain truth of its import, in which the Old 
Testament scriptures were sealed by the concluding 
verses of Malachi. Chap. 4 : 4-6. Those words 
sealed the prophetic disclosures for more than four 
hundred years ; and plainly till the first coming of 
Messiah, or especially till the times of his precursor 
and cotemporary, John the Baptist ; who was per- 
sonally the predicted " Elijah the prophet," of that 
eventful period . Till then, the church was distinctly 
apprized that the prophetic gift would retire and its 



192 

oracles no more be communicated ; consequently 
they were referred to those already copious scrip- 
tures for their paramount rale in the portentous in- 
terval. "Remember ye the law of Moses my wm- 
vant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for 
aix Israel, with the statutes ajtd judgml: 
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before 
the coming of the great and dreadful day of the 
L : Consequently, we have the best reason to 

believe historically, that the fact corresponded with 
the prediction. Many pseudo-sacred books were 
indeed written ; but they were utterly rejected from 
the canon of the church. The books that consti- 
tute what we call the Apocrypha, were all written 
in this interval: and are on that account alone if 
other cardinal proofs were not demonstrative and 
abundant, condemned as spurious ; notwithstanding 
their canonized validity according to the council of 
Trent. So is sealed the New Testament canon, 
and with it the total volume of inspiration, till the 
second coming of Christ in the end of the world : 
an event which he declares shall occur •* quick 
or with as much rapidity as infinite providence, 
rolling on the events of things, can well and wisely 
order in their course. The church also responds 
with kindred rapture, as the bride beloved salutes 
the appointed hour of her bridegroom's return ; 
Even s come, Lord Jesus."* And till he come, 
according to his own engagement, the ca^ox of 

PROPHECY IS PLAIXLY SEALED BY HDISELF : nor Ls 

it his bride that will encourage a forgery in bis 
name. What then are we to expect in the mean- 



493 

time 1 I answer, our anticipation ought to be two- 
fold ; (1) That spurious prophecy will abound* 
This is the fact. In every age since, we have seen 
the sibyl leaves of sorcery scattered on the winds 
of heaven for the ruin of the nations : so that the 
Apocryphal writings of the new dispensation are 
more numerous and more execrable, and some of 
them more specious, than those of the old. 59 I place 
the writings of the Quakers, with their voluminous 
simulation and their virulence of error, among the 
most successful counterfeitings of Satan in these 
latter ages. They are plainly spurious pretenders 
to an equal, nay " greater," because fresher, autho- 
rity, than " the holy scriptures." They are specious 
and plausible, as the " angel of light " apparent, 
by whom they were inspired. They intoxicate with 
their potations all by whom they are imbibed ; in- 
troducing " another Jesus, another Spirit, another 
gospel," and not those of the scriptures of truth. 
The Quakers, the Mormonites, the profoundly 
stupid TONGUES of the British metropolis, and 
others, thousands such, have since appeared with 
their very authentic inspirations ! nor is this the 
end. " False Christs " and every kind of false 
prophets and false doctrines, will crowd the pro- 
cession of the future, till the millennium. (2) That 
we ought to expect no more genuine prophecy ; 
no, not till the end of time. The spurious has been 
easily identified hitherto, even summarily, by inter- 
nal evidence. It seems almost obvious absolutely, 
that no more of the true is needed, nor will ever 
be given. I do not say that " knowledge " will not 



494 

" be increased," both by the improvement and the 
diffusion of light : but both shall proceed from the 
perfect volume that God hath " sealed till the time 
of the end !" The Bible will be more and more 
perfectly understood ; more and more purely and 
faithfully interpreted ; more and more extensively 
pondered and known ; more and more translated 
into different languages ; more and more commu- 
nicated to the nations, and universalized in its 
glorious benefits. We live in the last dispensation, 
most certainly : and though the most eventful and 
the best of its portentous series is probably to 
come, yet the " paradised ages " before us will con- 
stitute not a new dispensation, but only the more 
" blessed and holy " consummation of the present. 
I expect such a consummation ; and by such means 
induced — together with intermingled judgments, 
some or many of which will electrify the world ! 
and things more terrible, in executing summary 
wrath on the multitudes of the post-millennial apos- 
tacy ; just as time and eternity meet, and " the 
Son of man shall come in his glory and all the holy 
angels with him;" shall raise the mighty congrega- 
tion of the dead ; and " shall sit upon the throne 
of his glory." Matt. 25 : 19, 31. Acts 1 : 9-11. 

1 Cor. 15 : 24-28. Phil. 3 : 20, 21. 1. Thess. 

2 : 19. 3 : 13. 4 : 13-18. 2 Thess. 2 : 1, 2-5. 
1 Tim. 6 : 13-16. 2 Tim. 4 : 1. Tit. 2 : 12, 13. 
Heb. 9 : 28. 2 Pet. 3 : 7-14. Rev. 1 : 7, 8. Then 
indeed will come that most " great and terrible 
day of the Lord," to which all similar days had 
been typical and tributary. 3. We ought to trem- 



495 

ble indeed at the sin and danger of mutilating 
"the oracles of God!" This may be done in 
many ways : but in two principally, which are spe- 
cified distinctly in the obsignation. (1) By addi- 
tion. " If any man shall add unto these things, 
God shall add unto him the plagues that are writ- 
ten in this book." If " any man " will examine 
these " plagues " in detail, he will soon find them 
to transcend all ordinary damnation ; yet they shall 
be added to him who adds to the inspired canon 
the forgeries of his own imagining : and WHO 
shall add them \ CC^ " GOD shall add unto him the 
plagues that are written in this book !" Is it any 
venture here to infer the distinguished wicked- 
ness, beyond all powers of language or of thought 
to express, of such profanation ! such felony against 
heaven ! such forgery of the seal royal of " the 
only wise God !" Whose cause is subserved by 
such systematic sorcery I the cause of truth or error, 
of salvation or perdition, of Jesus Christ or of that 
chieftain " of the bottomless pit, whose name in 
the Hebrew tongue, is Abaddon ; but in the Greek 
tongue, hath his name Apollyon ;" in the English, 
whose name is Destroyer. But are Friends ob- 
noxious to this awful commination 1 I answer, 
promptly, OCT" NO — if their claims to inspira- 
tion ARE VALID AND CORRECT! BUT, IF THEY ARE 
NOT, THEY ARE MORE PERFECTLY ENTITLED TO ITS 
VOLLIES OF WRATH DISCHARGED UPON THEM THAN 
ANY OTHER RELIGIONISTS KNOWN TO ME IN THIS 

age. It is undeniable, and it were monstrous to 
deny, that their claims are as high as any claims 



496 

ever were. The only difference is, that, as all false 
pretension overacts and becomes more such in ap- 
pearance than that which is true, Quakerism claims 
more, and that much more importunately, than real 
inspiration does ! George Fox has almost every 
sentence first or last fenced with the averment, 
" The Lord said to me ; the Lord told me ; the Lord 
showed me ;" and such like claims to an inspiration 
of the highest kind, that of direct suggestion, plen- 
ary, constant, perfect, reaching to all his inspired 
actions as well as all his words ; and (as Barclay 
claims) becoming alone competent as the rule of 
universal practice. This then is "adding" with a 
witness ! On supposition that their claims are de- 
lusive and false, they are in a condition at once 
most guilty and horrible — none the less because 
they " say, peace and safety." I press the power 
of this dilemma ; for it is no fiction, or invention, or 
artifice, but the solemn truth of the matter. If their 
preachers and authors are inspired, their communi- 
cations are, as Penn declares, confirming the oracles 
of another spiritual ventriloquist, of equal, yea, 
" greater authority ;" because more ' immediately ' 
or recently given : if not inspired, they are entitled 
to all the plagues written in this book ! Reader, 
on which horn do you prefer to swing 1 I know 
with what lubricity they can manage to slip away 
from the conclusion — but I know too that there are 
others who care for the truth. But the scriptures 
may be mutilated, and the sin and peril incurred, (2) 
By subtracting from their finished code. For " if 
any man shall take away from the words of the book 



497 

of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out 
of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and 
from the things which are written in this book." 
This is plainly a threat of equal awe. I ask; Are 
Friends exposed to it 1 Is there any sense in which 
they " take away from " the canonical scriptures \ 
I answer, There are several ; first, They supersede 
them with their own spurious inspiration, in whole 
or in part, in principle or in effect, by pre-occupying 
the minds of the people and bewitching them with 
their ephemeral and fresh supplies of inspiration ! 
Second, They give the people such an idea of the 
nature of inspiration, against its true dignity 
and perfection, by intruding their miserable speci- 
mens continually on their notice, that the conclusion 
is natural, and even necessary, that all inspiration is 
equally childish, moonstruck, insipid ! and this is 
" taking away " from the true " oracles of God " 
their proper excellency and use. Third, It comes 
to pass by the whole influence of their notions and 
their scheme that " the holy scriptures " are very 
much reduced in value and in efficacy, in the 
practical estimate of their people, especially their 
youth ; who, with some rare exceptions, are prover- 
bially ignorant and almost paganized in respect to, 
the contents of that book of God ! They have no 
catechisms or creeds ; no bible-classes of parochial 
exercise and insight in the treasures of the truth ; 
no Sunday-schools (unless quite recently " pro- 
voked " to that good work — though quakerized) in 
which to teach their children ; and no pastoral care, 
instruction, and sound indoctrination on "the Lord's 

G3 



43? 

day.'- The scriptures are not read at all in their 
public meetings : nor have they any such thing as 
the domestic altar or regular family religion, or 
social worship of any kind in their domestic scenes — 
except some equally few and fitful visitations of tra- 
velling* inspirati, now and then, to teach them com- 
paratively nothing. To "'take away" from "the 
holy scriptures " their admirable use. is richly to 
deserve the curse written for the deed ! It is to 
entail curses by wholesale on the souls of sinners 
around us ! It is to marshal the way of the unre- 
conciled, in everlasting deviation from God ! And it 
is to satisfy and to secure them with a piece of 
hateful treachery within them, by which they are 
to walk, as ••' a more noble and excellent rule !" 
Hence, in effect, in ways other than I have here 
mentioned,, that I knoic.) in the common sentiments 
and conversation of many of them, they take awav 
from " the word of God " all its proper virtue, all its 
best results, all its glorious hopes I Is this no sin ! 
'•For I testify," says Jesus Christ, "unto every 
man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this 
book !" He testifies the sin of mutilation, and the 
doom ol its perpetrator ! 

Very well do I know, here and elsewhere, what 
Friends allege against these charges. Theysav; 
Why, we do verily esteem the scriptures as the 
noblest writings in the world ; we read them fre- 
quently, and exhort our youth to do the same, as 
they all can witness : so that it is rank calumnv 
thus to blaze us abroad as contemners of the scrip- 
tures. This is perhaps the substance of their an- 






490 

swer, as I have often " witnessed " it. Well, grant 
that this is all to some extent — possibly — true : I 
will tell yon, Friends, what else ye do, abrogating 
all the good. You tell them (1) That they are only 
" a secondary rule ;" a good book, but not " the 
word of God." (2) That each of them has their 
paramount in his own heart, " by attending to whose 

clear manifestations " than which a worse error 

could scarcely be told to them, or believed by them ! 

(3) That inspiration has not ceased at all ; but that 
the writings of inspired Friends are very ' profit- 
able,' being fresher " given forth " by the same 
Spirit, and worthy to be pondered by all Friends. 

(4) That Friends value the scriptures, not as the 
priests and hirelings and world's people do ; since 
the Bible is not the gospel, but only a record of the 
things of previous ages and dispensations in rela- 
tion to the living principle, " a measure of which is 
given to all to profit with." Penn. And, (5) You 
do not tell them, for this is contrary to your prin- 
ciples, Of THE INFINITE IMPORTANCE of becoming 

acquainted with their contents ! the guilt and sin of 
their condition, till converted heartily to God ! the 
certain perdition of their " dying in their sins!" the 
necessity of loving that truth identically, which is 
there revealed, in order to the existence of piety in 
the soul ! the fact that God uses his written truth as 
the universal instrument, directly or indirectly, of all 
the ascertained piety in the world ! the evil of igno- 
rance, error, indifference, and unbelief; and the utter 
hopelessness of continuing in impenitence ! the ne- 
cessity of application, without prejudice, indolence, 



500 

or intermission ; and the equal necessity of prayer, 
hearty believing prayer, to " the Father of lights " 
and the Maker of mind, without impiously waiting 
for " a special impulse " to pray, in order to profi- 
ciency in the knowledge of the truth. And (6) you 
give them no adequate helps, motives, and really 
learned instruction, calculated to interest their 
minds and affect their thoughts and attach their 
feelings with practical intensity. How could you 
give, what you do not possess ; or adequately recom- 
mend what you never experienced ! Hence there 
is next to none of sound biblical instruction enjoy- 
ed by your children ; while they are conscientious 
against trusting all it says, lest they should fall 
into the snare of preferring it to the inward light ; 
which is " a more noble and excellent rule !" This 
Iknoic is fact ! 

The conclusion is that the charge of mutilation 
of the scriptures is good against you ! and now I 
increase it perhaps, by adding my own conviction 
that no other heresy does this more effectually ; and 
that the good things, that you say in praise of the 
Bible and compound with your poisonous heresy, 
only enhance the evil ! for no one then suspects you 
of any injurious influence. " Art thou in health, 
my brother !" You kiss while you betray the Son 
of man ! You smile when you stab him to the 
heart! You very sincerely ''crucify him afresh and 
put him to an open shame !" While doing the work 
of an enemy, you claim to be pre-eminently a friend ! 
You prevent, in your own incomparable way, that 
just estimate of "the oracles of God," without 



501 



which not one man in a thousand is ever actu- 
ated in devoutly reading them to the benefit of his 
soul ; and then say many fine things about such fine 
writings ! In this way too you deceive yourselves : 
and you as well deceive others. The superficial 
beholder thinks better of you than the truth. Ma- 
ny an infidel Friend, and I have known such mem- 
bers of meeting and " plain " ones too, passes for a 
believer and a christian, because of his dress and 
his address alone ; just as wretched brass often 
passes for gold, because of an exterior stamp, at 
making which counterfeiters are expert, but which 
does not change its nature. So may an enlighten- 
ed christian say of the theatre, when one of its fa- 
natical votaries blames him for his censure of it : 
thus — That there are many good things in it, I do 
not deny or doubt. Its sentiment is often as good 
identically as the gospel of God, which it correctly 
quotes ; often as refined and poetical as Milton or 
Watts ; often full of manly and generous incite- 
ment ; often delightfully rhetorical, displaying some 
of the finest examples of true eloquence ; often 
mentally improving and rationally entertaining ; 
and sometimes possibly affording a less censurable 
way of spending or rather mis-spending a whole 
evening — than some others that could be named. 
What then 1 Is the theatrical system good 1 I an- 
swer, far from it. It is a school of vice ; a system 
of ruin ; as Tillotson said, * the chapel of the devil ;' 
the antechamber of hell ; as bad as gambling and 
swindling and methodized impurity can make it ; 
the royal exchange of universal profligacy ; the place 



502 

where all young men almost, who go to perdition 
before they die as well as afterward, in our large 
cities, commence their dissolute courses and enter 
their novitiate of vice ; a system which, stern statis- 
tics and matter-of-fact experience have demonstrat- 
ed, could not exist a year, but for that thorough 
alliance with sensual iniquity and other abomina- 
tions, which has always characterized it in both 
hemispheres. If this account be correct. I ask any 
sober reader, if the virtues of the stage are not as 
helpful to the system as the opposite parts of it I if 
the system is not worse because at once sustained 
and disguised by them) on account of the inciden- 
tal excellencies involved ! if the very courtezans 
that haunt it. as their devoted temple, are any more 
necessary to it as a whole, than are those cunningly 
intermingled excellencies ! 

I say the same of Quakerism. As a system, it 
is a cheat, a spiritual hallucination. It is not Chris- 
tianity. It takes away salvation ; and teaches you 
to be smooth and soft \ It robs you of the only 
hope of a sinner ; and gives you •• inward light "' 
for your '-'more noble and excellent" compensation. 
It supersedes the Redeemer and his offices ; and 
requites the felony with — a plain and peaceful garb ! 
It does this — and says and does a great number of 
other things which are quite good and worthy of im- 
mense commendation ! And because of these other 
things, it requires all men to approve the system, and 
fellowship its votaries, and have a perfect fraternal 
charity toward all " the blind leaders of the blind/' 
that mean no harm, are verv sincere, and see no 



503 

danger in that way ! I confess that it nauseates 
my soul to read or hear a Friend praising the scrip- 
tures. To betray Christ was hardly as great a sin 
as that affectionate kiss the traitor gave him ! Nor 
can I dispassionately believe that my present deci- 
sion results from any greater or worse cause than 
a peculiar acquaintance with the reality of the case, 
and with both sides of the unappreciated argument. 
So far am I from any personal exasperation, that it 
is love for their souls — God is witness — that in- 
duces me both to abhor their errors and to give 
"voice and utterance" to that abhorrence. But 
they will not credit this averment ; far otherwise ! 
— a sentiment which it more grieves than surprises 
me to discern the necessity of entertaining. " The 
disciple is not above his master, nor the servant 
above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that 
he be as his master, and the servant as his lord ! 
If they have called the master of the house Beelze- 
bub, how much more shall they call them of his 
household !" Jesus Christ never found out the way 
of speaking the truth faithfully to unconverted men 
without displeasing them. 

I conclude with the remark, that now for more 
than twenty years, have I been strongly and increas- 
ingly convinced that the errors in which I was nur- 
tured and which (though I neither did my duty nor 
thought myself a christian) I sincerely believed, 
identifying them with all the Christianity I knew, 
are radical and destructive ; worse for their specious 
appearances, their interesting and conciliating ac- 
companiments, and the things truly good embraced 



504 

in the system as a whole : and that the experience 
I have really had of them and ot Christianity in 
. . epetition. and the spiritual penis I have neces- 
sarily encountered in consequence, authorize me at 
least to speak and publish my own solemn convic- 
n respecting them. If in doing this, I have ap- 
peared to use more severity and rigor than v. 
properly allowar. *. I can only say I will repent of 
what I have written, the matter of ir. as soon as I 
am convinced of its impropriety ; while the n itive 
< fit, I refer to the Judge eternal — and the man: 

hose who choose to criticise it: since well I 
know thai no man is competent to condemn this 
performanc t. whe is not a sound and practical chris- 
:ian : and who. to a correct knowledge jf the doc- 
trine of the scriptures, does not unite such an ac- 
quaintance with the contrasted errors of Friends. 
is to be thence qualified impartially t : estimate and 
incorruptly to pronounce on their high ; ms. 

•Fee: teem not therefore ; foi there is nothing co- 
vered that shall not be revealed : and hid, that shall 
not be known. What I tell you in darkness, that 
speak ye in light ; and what ye hear in the ear, that 
preach ye upon tit -. h ee se-tops . And fear not them 
that kill the body, but are not ei.ee to kill the soul : 

rathei tree ;ti:u. who ts able to destroy both soul 
and body in hell." 



PARS TISSUE 



THE SACRAMENTS: THE MINISTRY. 

The love of Christ constraineth its. 2 Cor. 5 : 14. 
Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Matt. 6 : 10. 
The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Rev. 19 : 10. 
Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all'things, and keep the 
ordinances as I delivered them to you. 1 Cor. 11:2. 

This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ ; not by water only, 
but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth loiiness, because the Spirit 
is truth. 1 John, 5 : 6. 

Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, 
for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. 
Acts, 2 : 38. 

And he took bread, and gave thanks, and break it, and gave unto them, 
saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance 
of me. Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testa- 
ment [covenant] in my blood which is shed for you. Luke, 22 : 19, 20. 

But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink 
of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh 
damnation [judgment] to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. 1 Corin- 
thians, 11 : 28, 29. 

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his 
friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. John, 
15 : 13, 14. 
For thus it become th us to fulfil all. righteousness. Matt. 3:15. 
And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they who are called to the mar- 
riage-supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings 
of God. Rev. 19 : 9. 

And thou hast tried those who say they are apostles, and are not ; 
and hast found them liars. Rev. 2 : 2. 

Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, 
and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith 
the Lord of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return ? Mai. : 37. 

Wo unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own 
sight ! Therefore is the anger of the Lord kindled against his people, and he 
hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them. There- 
fore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so 
their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust : be- 
cause THEY HAVE CAST AWAY THE LAW OF THE LORD OF HOSTS, AND DE«- 

pised the WORD of the Holy One of Israel. Isai. 5 : 21, 24, 25. 

Now as Janos and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the 
truth : men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. But they shall 
proceed no further : for their folly shall bo manifest unto all men, as theirs 
also was. 2 Tim. 3 : 8, 9. 

64 



FART THIRD. 



THE SACKAMENTS. 

The high spiritual pretensions of Friendism and 
its instinctive absorbing tendency to the interior, 
which may be termed (for we may make a word in 
such a case of singularity) its interiorizing cha- 
racteristic, its pervading fondness for the invisible 
penetralia of the human tabernacle, where best its 
indefinite and mysticising orgies can be performed, 
to mention just here no other and possibly more po- 
tent causes, may well account for its unsuffering 
antipathy to the christian sacraments. Few how- 
ever, to whom Friends and their writings are not 
both known, can imagine how great their devout 
aversion is towards these abrogated shadows, as 
they love to regard them ; — these divine institu- 
tions, as they are fully demonstrated and justly 
termed. 

The importance of the christian sacraments may 
be inferred absolutely from the fact, when proved, 
of their divine origination and authority. It may 
be subordinately shown from their proper nature, 
their true significancy, their instructive implications, 
the experience of communicants, the history and 
character of some who have rejected them, and the 
testimony of the most learned and excellent writers 
in the church ; as well as from their catholic preva- 



508 

lence and certain antiquity as adjuncts of the chris- 
tian religion. But — we repeat it — if the bare fact 
of the pleasure of God in the matter will not com- 
mend them to the mind of the reader when duly 
vindicated as divine ordinances, w T e may almost de- 
spair of lower considerations, and leave the incor- 
rigible to the judgment of God. Their importance 
in relation to Friends, however, is peculiar. To 
affirm or deny their claims affects a system of doc- 
trine. The Friend could not be convinced of their 
divinity, without supposing that spiritual duty had 
some (and possibly more) exterior and formal rela- 
tions. It would then induce him to consult external 
evidence. It would obligate his conscience to some 
outward religious performances. It would explode 
his total system. It would teach him not to call that 
common, which God had called holy. He would 
hence desire instruction ; he would consult scripture, 
become candid, value exposition and all proper helps 
to the just and full investigation of the sense of scrip- 
ture, and feel bound by any outward lights which 
God has evidently lighted and sustained for direc- 
tion in the way of his will. One great proof with me 
(e plurimis unum) that Quakerismis not Christia- 
nity, is derived from the sacraments. I am sure that 
these are divine ordinances ; and that the evidence 
that they are such is perfectly conclusive. Quaker- 
ism rejects that evidence; and I reject Quakerism. 
By a sacrament, T mean, a divinely appointed 
form of worship in \ church of Jesus Christ, with 
respect to the covenano of grace, in which, by sensi- 
ble signals mutually approved, either party is 



509 

plighted to the other according to the tenor of the 
promises ; God to the believer for his salvation, and 
the believer to God as the object of his choice, his 
joy, his worship, his praise, and his inheritance, 

Protestants justly affirm that there are two sa- 
craments, and only two, under the gospel. There 
are many other matters, which, though divine or- 
dinances, (as magistracy, marriage, divorce in cer- 
tain cases, and others,) are still not sacraments : 
because they refer rather to human society and 
secular order than to the covenant of grace ; or, 
the spiritual stipulations of the parties and the im- 
mediate interests of the soul. The names of those, 
as sacrament, eucharist, baptism, washing, the 
Lord's supper, sealing ordinances, and the like, are 
comparatively of small concern. We write of things. 
If the fact can be proved, according to the defini- 
tion given above, our main purpose is gained. I 
believe in the things, and can assign competent rea- 
sons for the names by which they are distinguished. 
If Friends could be brought to see the divine wis- 
dom of the things themselves, they could also be 
brought, and that with ease, to own the propriety 
of the names. The matters themselves are their 
aversion — to such a degree that demonstration is 
often found powerless to remove it. 

My great object here is to evince the reality of 
these sacraments in general ; that they are impor- 
tant adjuncts of the christian religion, as it came 
from God, as it still is, and as it shall be to the end 
of time or the second coming of the Lord Jesus 
Christ to judge the world. 



510 

Friends regard them as vanities of no warrant or 
profit ; as traditionary relics of Romanism or Juda- 
ism or both, which it becomes all christians to dis- 
esteem and deny. They often speak of those who 
are better instructed, compassionating the earthli- 
ness of others — who obey God in the sacraments : 
these are thought to be mere children and dotards 
in comparison of their own enlightened superiority 
to such obsolete or barbarian usages : and they 
often speak of the wars and bloodshed which the 
sacraments may have occasioned, as proofs of their 
evil tendency and empty character. Many speak 
of them with levity and insult, as if no proof could 
establish their claim to divine authority ; so evident 
is their absurdity in the a priori radiance of the 
inward light ! Our grand position is, God is their 
author, as the scriptures perfectly aver : if we can 
prove this, let the reader judge what kind of mo- 
dern inspiration it is that contradicts, and that with 
fanatical self-complacency, the written orders of the 
Spirit of God ! Wretched delusion ! Presumptuous 
and guilty sanctimony ! 

I begin with christian baptism. This sacrament 
may be defined to be, a typical washing of the body 
jcith water, (I suppose neither the quantity, nor the 
mode of application, to be at all essential ; the divine 
and human intention being the main concern,) as an 
act of appointed worship, devoting the subject to " the 
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost r into the visible profession, wo >/ ip, and in- 
heritance, of which "name," the party is thus form- 
ally introduced ; while its implication is — the moral 



511 

impurity of the subject that requires ablution ; its 
significancy — the salvation of God in Christ Jesus, 
especially that moiety of it which is termed sanctifi- 
cation. 

On this, and its twin companion, much has been 
and might be written. My present aim however is 
to evince their reality as divine institutions, or to 
show why I thus esteem them ; and in doing this, 
to oppose the sentiment of Friends that spiritualizes 
and refines away the plain import of scripture re- 
specting them. 

I argue the reality of baptism, as a divine institu- 
tion, from its high antiquity and general prevalence 
in the church ; from the apostolic and ministerial 
commission; and from the certain practice of the 
apostles and primitive preachers of the gospel. 

1. From its high antiquity and general prevalence 
in the church. Long before the corruptions of the 
papacy began to add its heathen honors to the simple 
vesture of Christ, acting always (as is the immemo- 
rial course of superstition,) on the principle of in- 
crease, baptism was notoriously universal in the 
church, and received as an apostolical tradition of 
the pure institute of God. The fact none will deny. 
I therefore omit proofs : or refer for them to the 
unanimous voice of ancient ecclesiastical history. 

Now, as this was all in the first three centuries of 
the christian era, so was it anterior to the hierarchy 
and establishment of papal Rome. It could not 
therefore have been a degenerate innovation after 
the apostles " fell as'eep," but must have been known 
and approved by themselves. Or, if it were a cor- 



512 

rapt innovation, where is the proof of this ? How 
came the corruption to be immediately so universal \ 
what trace of its introduction! who introduced it! 
where 1 who opposed, or did none oppose, such 
childish degeneracy 1 These questions are of more 
force, when we consider the evidence which is fur- 
nished in the New Testament in favour of the 
inspired apostolical origin of baptism. Whence, 
2. The commission, given by Jesus Christ to his 
apostles and to their successors in the ministry of the 
gospel to the end of time, authorizes it as a divine 
institution. Matt. 28 : 19, 20. Mark, 16 : 15, 16. It 
is hard to prove what is palpable and self-evident. 
It is so plain from the compared and concurrent tes- 
timonies of these two Evangelists, and that in the 
important respect of the ministerial commission, that 
it seems certain that no unprejudiced person, who 
understands especially the original, and is of mental 
force sufficient to appreciate evidence, could read 
and study both passages without acknowledging 
their conclusiveness. " Go ye therefore and teach 
[disciple, uadyjrsvaars'] all nations, baptizing them in 
[into] the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
of the Holy Ghost ; teaching them to observe all 
things whatsoever I have commanded you : and lo, 
I am with you always, even unto the end of the 
world. Amen. — And he said unto them, Go ye into 
all the world, and preach the gospel to every crea- 
ture. He that believeth and is baptized, shall be 
saved ; but he that believeth not, shall be damned." 
On these passages I remark, 

(1) That, though they were originally given to 



513 

apostles, they were evidently designed for all suc- 
ceeding ages, "even unto the end of the world." 
They therefore comprise the only true preachers' 
commission through the whole dispensation. Its 
power to bind us has lost nothing, it has rather 
gained, by age. 

(2) That baptism is formally included (in the latter 
passage by necessary implication, in the former by 
express order,) in both and either of them. The 
promise of salvation is not made to him that be- 
lieveth merely ; the words and is baptized are ad- 
ded : though it is hard to see how a true believer, 
having the opportunity, could refuse baptism. 

(3) That in such a formal instrument as the com- 
mission of the Christian ministry, we have reason 
to think that nothing of small moment would be in- 
serted : but baptism is inserted ; while the general 
order to inculcate whatsoever I have commanded you 
covers all the minor matters of Christianity, and at 
the same time more palpably includes baptism. 
Whatsoever Christ has ' commanded ' must be for that 
reason enforced by his ministers. It is the best 
reason in the universe. What matter is it what 
Friends and others choose to think or speak 1 a true 
minister is mainly concerned to know and vindicate 
the will of Christ. How any person, considering 
the solemnity and perspicuity of this instrument, can 
disparage baptism and deny its purely divine au- 
thority, appears only to those who have some ac- 
quaintance with the facts of religious frenzy and 
with the darkness and infidelity of the human mind ! 
The fancy of one's own inspircdness marvellously 

65 



514 

disqualifies its subject for all sober thought. The 
illusions of religious vision shed their powerful 
pictures on all the objects of contact; and instan- 
taneously the total system of written truth assumes 
a correspondent hue. But the spirit of sound and 
rational investigation is very different from a vision- 
ary inspiration. 

But how do Friends interpret or evade this order 
of the Highest 1 Answer — by spiritualizing in spite 
of evidence. They say it means spiritual baptism 
alone ! But is it not claimed as the prerogative of 
Jesus Christ alone to " baptize with the Holy 
Ghost 1" To talk of delegating this power, is about 
as wise as the conceit of some who, to rationalize 
away the divinity of Jesus Christ, suppose that the 
work of creation was delegated to a creature. But 
what is this fancy other than a begging of the ques- 
tion 1 That there is such a thing as spiritual bap- 
tism is granted — for otherwise the rite could have 
no meaning or use ; that it is greater than that which 
is merely its instituted sign is also foreign to the 
controversy ; and that God is wont to baptize with 
his grace the spirits of men, through the co-agency 
of his ministers, is equally admitted : but the ques- 
tion is, Has he appointed a visible sign of this and 
"commanded" our obedience to it? We affirm; 
they deny. Observe, (1) He orders them to do it ; 
" baptizing, 5 ' as preaching, teaching, &c. (2) Spi- 
ritual baptism is always identified in substance or 
effect with the exercise of that faith which is " the 
fruit of the Spirit" and to which the promise of sal- 
vation is made : why then the tautology of saying 



515 

he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ? On 
our view, its meaning is plain and fair : he that be- 
lieveth and submits to the administration of baptism, 
as the seal and sign of the covenant of grace, thus 
witnessing a good confession, shall be saved. 

But hear Friends. " There is no baptism to con- 
tinue now, but the one baptism of Christ. There- 
fore water baptism is not to continue now, because 
it is not the one baptism of Christ." Barclay. Was 
it not in the christian commission of the ministry, 
and for the new dispensation, that they were to " go 
into all. the world and preach the gospel to every 
creature, baptizing them," &c. 1 Or was this not 
christian baptism ? or could they baptize with the 
Holy Ghost 1 or if both they and Christ were to bap- 
tize, where then is the " one baptism," about which 
Barclay reasons so jesuitically 1 Jesuitism itself! 

But the true meaning is plain, 

3. From the practice of the apostles and primitive 
preachers of Christianity under that same commis- 
sion. None but an infidel can doubt that the inspired 
apostles understood this fundamental matter — their 
commission! How then did they act? Look at 
Peter in the house of Cornelius, urging the admi- 
nistration of the sign on the express ground that his 
hearers had received the substance ! " Can any man 
forbid water, that these should not be baptized, who 
have received the Holy Ghost as well as we 1" He 
does not say who always had a light within ; but 
" who have received the Holy Ghost as well as we !" 
The whole phraseology of the New Testament is 
plainly at war with that prime error of Friends. If 



516 

the apostles had believed Friends' doctrine, they 
would have expressed themselves in different lan- 
guage — -foxian, for example. " And he commanded 
them to be baptized in the name of the Lord." Acts, 
10 : 47. 43. Is there any need of comment or could 
proof be more conclusive! Is Quakerism Christian- 
ity ? Look at the case of the thousands of Pente- 
cost ; Acts. 2:41,. of the converts at Samaria; 8: 
12, of the Ethiopian eunuch ; 33, of Paul ; 9 : 18, 
of Lydia and the jailer ; 16 : 15, 33. and others re- 
corded in the book of the practice of the apostles, 
and recorded to this very end, that we might com- 
pare actions with words, and so ascertain the mind 
of the Holy Ghost ! How much iuward light and 
inspiration must be requisite to convince a man that 
water baptism is not a divine institution ! 

If it be said Peter misunderstood the ministerial 
commission, in thinking that the gentiles were not 
included ; I reply, (1) Peter was not all the apostles ; 
and his prejudice as a jew on the article of commu- 
nion with the uncircumcised, though common to his 
nation, is a mere exception to the rule, but one that 
was not lasting. At first he thought as a jew. It 
was his personal infirmity, his private imperfection. 
God wrought a miracle indeed to correct it ; but his 
views of baptism were not corrected, for he baptized 
the household of Cornelius immediately after the 
miracle. (2) Paul was miraculously converted, icas 
baptized and never misunderstood his commission 
in any thing on record. He also practised baptism ; 
and though his colleagues, Silas, Timothy, Titus, 
Barnabas, and others, most probably officiated 



517 

oftener than himself in the rite of baptism, yet was 
it done in his presence and with his authority. No 
miracle was ever wrought to correct the administra- 
tion of baptism : and if the exception (a transient 
one) confirms the rule, it is true that the apostles did 
understand their commission. Their public practice 
too is without exception, uniform, decisive. This 
was especially true after the- gospel began to be 
preached to the nations by universal consent. 

Besides, the position, to which we now refer, re- 
spects the inspiration of the apostles in their public 
administration. This indeed is the only proper idea 
of their inspiration. The private actions and words 
of the apostles were not inspired. Inspired actions, 
that abortion of moral agency, is one of the inven- 
tions of the religious society. They were inspired 
only when they professed inspiration ; only when au- 
thoritatively delivering, by word or writing, the will 
of God to others, or when they received it for their 
own official government. Inspiration did not re- 
move or impair their personal accountability or con- 
secrate all their individual conduct; but where they 
spake or wrote professedly the will of God to bind 
the consciences of others, where they all concurred 
in the measures and duties of his worship, and 
where their recorded practice under the high seal of 
heaven proposes to illustrate the duties of men, there 
the position is in its place — plainly none but an infi- 
del can doubt that the inspired apostles understood 
this fundamental matter, their commission ! 

Three of their objections I will here consider ; 
premising that I have often heard them urged by 



518 

their leaders ; that they are the strongest with which 
I am acquainted ; and that properly expounded they 
are totally against themselves. They are all texts 
of scripture. 

Objection 1. " The like figure," &c. 1 Pet. 3 : 21. 
From this they infer that water baptism is not meant ; 
that " a good conscience " is all ; and that this they 
can have in perfection while they entirely omit the 
" figure." 

Without circumlocution I will give what I am sure 
is the plain and proper meaning of this passage, in 
a paraphrase ; adverting to its connection with the 
preceding verses: As eight persons were saved in 
the ark, w r hen the whole world perished by the just 
judgment of God; so now, those who duly submit 
to the ordinance of baptism find that to hejigura- 
tively an ark of safety to them : not that the mere 
mechanical action which removes " the filth of the 
flesh," or mere symbolical washing, comprehends 
the important matter ; the substance must ever ac- 
company or rather precede the sign, in order to its 
salvation : but how could we feel safe were we to 
neglect it 1 how could we possess " the answer of a 
good conscience toward God " if we were to omit 
what he hath commanded 1 In order to be assured 
of his favor, we are ever to walk in all the command- 
ments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless : Luke, 
1 : 6, for " a good conscience toward God " is 
always the concomitant and consequence of uni- 
versal obedience. 

This " figure " gives a terrible implication against 
the hopes of those who neglect baptism. It is the 



519 

"ark" in which the church is saved ; while a worse 
deluge than that of the days of Noah awaits the 
souls of them that contemn God, and who yet boast 
of their " good conscience " while they deny HIS 
ordinances ! Many a poor dupe of the light within 
has vaunted his mistake (and now continues to do 
it) as if it were his piety : and boasted or believed 
in " a good conscience " as his own, while he 
refused the very thing to which the passage refers 
as constituting it. 

In proof of the validity of the exposition, let it be 
remembered (1) generally, that Christianity and 
truth are always self-consistent ; (2) that this Peter 
is the same who officiated in the house of Cornelius, 
and who thus called to the thousands on the day 
of Pentecost ; " Repent and be baptized every one 
of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remis- 
sion of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the 
Holy Ghost." Besides, the drift of the context ob- 
viously requires this interpretation. 

Objection 2. "I thank God that I baptized none 
of you, but Crispus and Gains ; lest any should 
say that I had baptized in (into) mine own name. 
And I baptized also the household of Stephanas ; 
besides, I know not whether I baptized any other. 
For Christ sent me not to baptize ; but to preach 
the gospel." 1 Cor. 1 : 14-17. From this they ga- 
ther that baptism is at best a small affair ; that it 
was no part of Paul's proper office to perform it ; 
and that it can be no very culpable matter for them 
wholly to dispense with it. To which I reply — 

(1) That this is wholly changing their ground ; 



520 

it is a fair concession of the fact that the rite was 
practised by the apostles of God : for if spiritual 
baptism be all, then this is meant ; and if so, are 
Friends to be seen disparaging its importance! 
Paul must have meant the rite, and not that signi- 
fied by it — or, he regretted the salvation of men ! 
(2) There is no such thing in the passage as any 
disparagement of the rite. Paul does not say that 
it was not his proper business ; for then why did he 
baptize at all 1 Did he perform what was improper 
and wrong \ If his had been the notion of Friends, 
would he have baptized Crispus, and Gaius, and 
Stephanas and his household 1 He does indeed say 
that it was not his principal business or the duty 
most appropriate to his office as the Apostle of the 
nations. But is this depreciating or impeaching bap- 
tism as a divine ordinance 1 Far from it. See him 
at Ephesus, Acts, 19 : 1-7, imposing christian bap- 
tism upon twelve of John's disciples : — who had 
been before baptized by the Baptist ; as I must be- 
lieve, notwithstanding the show of venerable names, 
(and nothing else,) in favor of a different view. But 
the church was divided into parties ; and some (we 
may guess who) piqued themselves not a little on 
their conversion under the ministry of Paul, and es- 
pecially that they had received their baptism at his 
hands. By the way, they valued baptism and asso- 
ciated it with their conversion to God ! Paul then 
rejoiced in the circumstance that he had baptized 
very few of them, " lest any should say that he" was 
accessary to their partizanships. But did he assert 
or imply that the others were not baptized I or that 



521 

God was about to abolish the ordinance ! or that he 
had not baptized thousands of other persons, in dif- 
ferent places, with his own hand, or caused still 
greater numbers to be baptized by his associates in 
the ministry 1 O the darkness of a certain light! 

That baptism ought to be performed only by a 
regular minister of Christ, and not by any other 
person, we infer from the obvious propriety of the 
case ; from immemorial usage ; from the evils and 
disorders incident to an opposite practice ; from the 
fact that it is contained in the ministerial commis- 
sion ; and from the total absence of all example or 
authority in the New Testament for its administra- 
tion but by a public minister of Christ. We there- 
fore deny totally the validity of lay baptism. This 
is a troublesome consideration to Friendism! Those 
whose characteristic it is to deny the distinct order 
of the evangelical ministry, would be slow to ac- 
credit a divine ordinance (not to speak of many 
others) which ministers, and men only, can compe- 
tently perform ! This is the fountain of their in- 
spiration on several articles. Their dislike of the 
clergy is unfeigned, conscientious, pervading : their 
phobia on this topic (I might say — hydrophobia) is 
wonderful ! Hence a total retrenchment of what- 
ever seems to sanction or require them. Their 
reforming was radical and their revolutionizing en- 
tire ! They have retrenched the commission itself, 
as antiquated and lifeless ; always taking out a new 
one for every special piece of service they perform : 
I think however it is just as vain and sanctionless 
as any other " sparks which they have kindled." 

66 



522 

3. I come now to another argument or Objection 
of theirs, taken, very confidently, from Matt. 3 : 
13-15. " Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jor- 
dan unto John, to be baptized of him. But John 
forbade him, saying, I have need to be baptized of 
thee, and comest thou to me I And Jesus, answer- 
ing, said unto him, Suffer it to be so now : for thus 
it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he 
suffered him." They say in substance this : Christ 
suffered it then, because of the ignorance and blind- 
ness of the people, who were addicted to the cere- 
monial of the Jews and the impositions of the rab- 
bins, and who could not have brooked the introduc- 
tion all at once of a system of total spirituality. It 
was then a merciful compliance with their weak- 
ness ; but now it is no longer to be " suffered. ' ? The 
substance has come ; the shadows and symbols re- 
tire. I answer, 

(1) It was not divine inspiration that dictated 
such a miserable gloss. Hear it from their prince 
of the Apology, a very chandelier of illuminations 
for the whole church to see by : 

" It will not thence follow that christians ought to 
do so now ; and therefore Christ, Matt. 3 : 15, gives 
John this reason of his being baptized, desiring him 
to suffer it to he so now ; whereby he sufficiently in- 
timates that he intended not thereby to perpetuate 
it as an ordinance to his disciples." Inspired! I 
deny that it " sufficiently " or at all intimates any 
such thing. Wo be to him " that loveth or maketh 
a lie !" This is only another instance — one of mil- 
lions, where a certain light perverts evidence and 



523 

sanctions mistake ! It is another demonstration 
against Quakerism : for inspiration is their basis ; 
but inspiration, when genuine, is infallible ; a mis- 
take therefore subverts the basis, by evincing that 
it is not of God, but an illusion of men. Whatever 
clemency is due to the mistakes of men, who ac- 
knowledge their fallibility and profess their sub- 
jection to the ordinary laws of mind, none ought to 
be granted or claimed in the case of those who 
boast of plenary inspiration from God, just such as 
that of the apostles : for, if their main position be 
true, they need no clemency — it is insolence to offer 
it ! This sing-song of Barclay is often re-echoed 
in their meetings. I well remember to have wit- 
nessed, and often to have felt, the incantation, thus : 
Jesus suffered it to be so then. And even now, my 
dearly beloved, must we forbear with those who are 
in the outward and who practise it in this day when 
the true light shineth. Alas ! they are in shadows 
indeed. They see not where is the life, the liberty, 
the power ! But blessed are your eyes for they see, 
and your ears for they hear ! 

Need I characterize the perversion ! Blessed be 
the ears that hear such cheap inspiration, and rare 
spirituality. 

They have totally mistaken the facts of the case. 
When Christ says, " Suffer it to be. so now," he 
does not by it mean the ordinance itself, for that was 
no part of the noble dispute ; but he means the 
anomaly of the master being baptized by the ser- 
vant ! A grammatical conscience ought more 
shrewdly to have scanned the antecedent of " it ;" 



524 

which is palpably not baptism; but the totally un- 
paralleled relative incongruity of its administration 
in that wonderful instance. " Without all contra- 
diction the less is blessed of the better ;" and the 
implication is the same in the action of baptism. 
John was too humble and too sensible to bear the 
implication, without a proper confession of bis in- 
feriority. Hence " John forbade him, saying, I have 
need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to 
me f 3 But afterward " he suffered him," and Je- 
sus was baptized of John in Jordan. Thus the 
whole view of Friends is fundamentally false. It 
is founded on a total perversion of the monosyllable 
it in the sentence. They assume that it means the 
ordinance itself; and not the passing paradox of its 
administration, that never before or since had its 
counterpart, of a sinful man administering a reli- 
gious and official qualification to the sinless and 
only-begotten Son of God ! How great the humili- 
ty of John ; how much greater the humiliation of his 
Lord, " the latchet of whose shoes he was not 
worthy to unloose S" 

thou glorious Mediator ! 
Who thy pattern would desert 1 

TVho is purer, better, greater, 
Or in wisdom more expert? 

1 will follow thee, my Leader ! 

Glorying only in thy cross ; 

Thou my all-sufficient Pleader, 

Having thee I feel no loss ! 

(2) The reason which the Savior assigns silenced 



525 

the scruples of the Baptist, and ought forever to 
silence the reasoning of Friends ; " Suffer it to be 
so now ; for thus it becometh us to fulfil all 
righteousness." This sentence is worthy to be 
printed on the heavens in capitals of gold ! Its 
applicability is illimitable. It applies to all persons, 
at all times, and for all duties. It includes all the 
objects and subjects of religion. It comes from the 
lips of our glorious Lord, and enforced by his own 
illustrious example in the most expressive circum- 
stances. Observe, first, his motive in the transaction. 
It was to fulfil a branch of " righteousness." Bap- 
tism was a divine ordinance ; and as such obligatory 
on every worshipper of God, on every man. Jesus 
Christ was a man. He had been "made of a woman, 
made under the law," and as such was absolutely 
obligated to obey it, as he did, in perfection. It 
would have been a dreadful defect in his character 
to have omitted that (as he omitted no other) branch 
of righteousness. He could have had no other 
motive than to honor his Father in all the ways of 
his appointment. He had no sin to wash away; 
no personal fitness to the rite as to its implication — 
the impurity of the subject : but he had duties to 
perform, and a perfect example to complete for his 
followers. He speaks of them, in delightful asso- 
ciation with himself, when he says, " thus it be- 
cometh us to fulfil all righteousness ; ,? to do any 
thing and every thing whatsoever God has ap- 
pointed ! Hence the prodigies of divine approbation 
that followed his baptism. " And lo, the heavens 
were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of 



526 

God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him : 
and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, This is my be- 
loved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Observe, 
second, that he had not then commenced, but was 
soon to commence, his public career as a preacher 
and minister of religion. He was just then emerg- 
ing into publicity, being "about thirty years of age." 
Hence the scene of his baptism has been styled that 
of his inauguration or formal introduction to office. 
Still, he was a private character when he was bap- 
tized — as all others are. Observe, third, how sedu- 
lous he was to receive baptism. He came incognito 
from Galilee to John, a distance of nearly 100 miles, 
to receive it ; and then insisted on its performance. 
Observe, fourth, that the principle was old, though 
its application was then peculiar, in his practice. 
He was circumcised ; he attended the passover ; 
obeyed his parents ; wrought at an humble trade ; 
inhabited an obscure and disreputable village ; 
waited patiently and unknown till the lawful age ; 
celebrated the passover, and instituted its counter- 
part, the very night before he suffered ; and in all 
" left us an example that we should follow his 
steps ; who did no sin." Observe, fifth, the force 
of the sentiment that thus " it becomes us " to do ! 
It is proper, obligatory, honorable, necessary ! It 
every way becomes us ! How unbecoming then for 
us to keep an inward light that contradicts both 
his example and his commandment ! We may do 
other things innumerable. We may do them scru- 
pulously and in vain. It is no part of "all righ 
teousness " unless divinely commanded. It is dire- 



527 

fill to have our wisdom in collision with the wis- 
dom of God. We never can compensate for ne- 
glect or violation of positive duties by a multitudi- 
nous observance of other matters. Poor King Saul 
tried this sort of piety to his sorrow on more than 
one occasion. " And Samuel said, Hath the Lord 
as great delight in burnt- offerings and sacrifices as 
in obeying the voice of the Lord \ Behold, to obey 
is better than sacrifice, and to hearken, than the fat 
of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft ; 
and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Be- 
cause thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he 
hath also rejected thee from being king." Again, 
" not every one that saith unto me Lord, Lord, 
shall enter into the kingdom of heaven ; but he 

THAT DOETH THE WILL OF MY FATHER who is in 

heaven. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I 
command you." 

Other objections of Friends to the ordinances of 
God, I am little careful to answer. But, in rela- 
tion to the subjects and the mode of baptism, I 
have only to say that it will be time enough to dis- 
cuss them when they cease to deny the rite itself. 
It were frivolous to investigate how or to whom a 
service is to be performed, while we doubt or de- 
ny that it is to be performed at all. Let Friends 
acknowledge the fact ; and then we will attend 
to their subordinate queries. The same may be 
said in regard to the uses of baptism. " What good 
does it do thee 1" is a very common question with 
them. It is very much like the question often put 
in respect to "the forbidden fruit," What harm 



523 

could it do for Eve to eat an apple ? The divine 
•sanction is every thing. To honor it has a vital 
connection with good, and to dishonor it. with harm. 
I sincerely pity the men who must wait for eternity 
to convince them of this ! I add. the utility of any 
measure or observance in religion is not. as such, 
our first question respecting it ; but this. Is it the 
pleasure of God! To question the excellency of 
a divine enactment is absurdity, equalled only by 
its impiety. Suppose Abraham had doubted and 
hesitated when ordered to forsake his country, his 
paternal mansions., and all the peerless charities of 
home, because the utility of the mandate did not 
appear to him ! Suppose he had preferred his own 
eye-sight in the matter of sacrificing Isaac, and had 
plausibly and naturally enough questioned its ex- 
pediency and uses ! Would he ever have been 
called •'•'the Father of the faithful and the Friend of 
God V To be such a Friend, is worthy the ambi- 
tion of immortals and the competition of mankind. 
" By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out 
into a place which he should after receive for an 
inheritance, obeyed; and he went out. not knowing 
whither he went. By faith Abraham, when he was 
tried, offered up Isaac : and he that had received the 
promises offered up his only-begotten son. of whom 
it was said, that in Isaac shall thy seed be called : 
accounting that God was able to raise him up, even 
from the dead ; from whence also he received him 
in afigure." The utilities of baptism however are 
not inscrutable, not paradoxical or severely trying to 
our faith ; though it is no part of my present pur- 



529 

pose to discuss them. To be publicly devoted to 
God according to his own appointment ; to have 
"the answer of a good conscience toward God" 
by duly respecting his own appointed signals of 
alliance with himself; to feel that we have been 
typically washed according to his own order, and at 
the same time sensibly admonished of our natural 
defilement — of the purity of God — of his purifying 
grace — of " the washing of regeneration and re- 
newing of the Holy Ghost," which is the great 
archetype of baptism — of the conservative " ark " 
into which baptism symbolically places us — and of 
the obligations and solemn commitment to holiness 
of life which baptism implies ; and to understand 
and appreciate the import of being baptismally allied 
" to the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
of the Holy Ghost," in duty, profession, worship, 
covenant and hope, are a few of the intelligible 
advantages of this branch of "righteousness:" and 
however baptism, in common with every other item 
of Christianity, may be or has been abused, per- 
verted, mistaken, dishonored, prostituted, or igno- 
rantly observed, by professors of religion, its utilities, 
like its authority, are wholly independent of the 
actions of men and entirely resolvable into the con- 
stitution of God. If it be demanded whether grace 
is conferred or only signified by this sacrament ; I 
answer, both ! not indeed that grace is necessarily 
conferred by the sign or always accompanies it ; 
because, as in the case of Simon Magus, it is not 
always sincerely received. But this is true of every 
other conceivable institution of God ! What is prayer, 

C7 



530 

when not sincerely used 1 Shall we then say that 
grace is not conferred and received by prayer 1 or 
reading the scriptures'! or performing any other 
duty] In all these cases, grace is not necessarily 
connected with the service ; it is not mechanically 
connected ; it is not found ex ojpere operato 60 with the 
mere performance. Shall we then, through an ultra 
spirituality, renounce the total service of God 1 We 
must do this, or remain inconsistent and wrong in 
the rejection of divine ordinances in general, or that 
solemnly commissioned one of baptism in particu- 
lar. For thus it becometh us to fulfil all 

RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

Barclay devotes nearly 40 pages to the treat- 
ment of baptism ; and it would require 400 fully to 
notice all the sophistry of his argument. When I 
read him on the sacraments, I confess that I am led 
to doubt whether he himself believed what he 
wrote; though upon reflection, I am unwilling to 
deny his sincerity. If the positive evidence alrea- 
dy adduced will not convince the reader of his per- 
version, I leave him to his responsibility ; only ob- 
serving that positive evidence has not been exhaust- 
ed. I have only given a few items of proof, des- 
pairing of conviction where these fail to produce it ; 
and remembering that truth is independent of the 
stupidity of men. 

One argument of Barclay deserves some sepa- 
rate notice. It is fundamental in his reasoning, and 
very plausibly treated. The text of Ephesians, 4 : 5, 
" There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism," sug- 
gests his position that there is only " one baptism ;" 



531 

hence he would hang us all on some horn of a di- 
lemma which he constructs for the purpose. He 
would have us admit from our view — as he states 
it — that water baptism is that only "one," and that 
hence there is no such thing as spiritual influence 
or the baptism of the Holy Ghost : that is, if we 
hold to the instituted sign we must mistake it for 
the thing signified ; or if we hold to the signal, di- 
vinely appointed, we must necessarily forego or deny 
the substance. This is strange reasoning ; and (if 
I can understand the drift apart from the drapery or 
the disguise of his argument) it is just that which he 
employs. He assumes that there is no connection 
between the sign and the substance, but rather a 
contrariety ; so that both cannot by possibility co- 
exist and mutually aid each other ; and so that, the 
things being mortally repugnant and opposite, as 
well as distinct, he who " holds to the one " must 
of necessity " despise the other :" he assumes vir- 
tually that " God and mammon " might as easily 
and compatibly be both at once pursued by men, as 
water baptism and spiritual baptism be both at once 
believed by them ; and hence we are called to take 
sides with Friends against the ordinance, or against 
God with the inimical sign. Any one that wishes 
to see and feel the force of his argument is advised 
to commence with believing that all signs are mar- 
vellously at war with all their corresponding sub- 
stances, all types with their archetypes, and all 
words with the sense conveyed by them. They will 
then believe, by parity or consequence, that if a 
man hangs out on his vesture the signals cap-a-pie 



532 

of honesty, soberness, and religion ; he must be the 
certain enemy of all these excellencies : and also that 
all the divine hieroglyphics of preceding ages were 
direfully inimical to " Jesus Christ and him cruci- 
fied," whom they were all designed to adumbrate 
and in whom their rays all converged for their ac- 
complishment. Hear Barclay. " As for the firsts 
viz. That there is but one baptism, there needs no 
other proof than the words of the text, Eph. 4 : 5. 
One Lord, one faith, one baptism : where the apos- 
tle positively and plainly affirms, that as there is but 
one body, one spirit, one faith, one God, &c. so 
there is but one baptism" I answer, the apostle 
"affirms" no such thing ; he does not say but one* 
He only asserts its unity. But what is unity 1 Al- 
most every subject is one in some respects, and not 
in others. A man is an animal and a spirit, one in 
person, more than one in nature and composition. 
Jesus Christ is one person and only one : but he has 
two equally appropriate natures, as "the man 
Christ Jesus," and as " God over all blessed for- 
ever." 1 Tim. 2 : 5. Rom. 9. Thus, we have 
" one Lord," who is both human and divine. Sup- 
pose I should follow Barclay's reasoning in respect 
to this article, which the apostle affirms in the same 
place, thus : Jesus Christ is Lord and we have but 
" one Lord," therefore the Lord Jesus Christ is but 
one ; but if he is man proper and God proper he is 
not but one, and hence not the Lord : therefore he 
is God only and not man, and those who hold his 
humanity oppose his deity ! Thus, in reference to 
baptism, it is " one " — and hence there is no such 



533 

thing as water baptism ; and " there needs no other 
proof," as " the apostle positively and plainly af- 
firms " the premises, " one baptism 1" 

The apostle in the connection is enforcing union 
among the christians of Ephesus : " endeavoring to 
keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." 
To this end, he tells them of the oneness of their 
baptism and of other unities, which all inspire one- 
ness of sentiment and feeling : by which I under- 
stand that as they were baptized into one incommu- 
nicable name, and not into different names of wor- 
ship, they were hence baptismally obligated to 
union in all things, universally honoring "the name 
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost." Baptism is evidently characterized from 
the name into which we are introduced by it ; " were 
ye baptized into the name of Paul 1 — Lest any 
should say that I had baptized into mine own name. 
When they heard this, they were baptized into the 
name of the Lord Jesus." Acts, 19 : 5. As baptism 
introduced converts, as it respects its proper import, 
their own profession, their worship, and obligations, 
into one name ; so it was one cause that it subserv- 
ed and owned, and so the apostle here refers pri- 
marily to the rite of baptism as connected with the 
name of " the only wise God" and the obligations 
of all true worshippers. Here is moral unity ; one 
household, one brotherhood ! — a community to 
which "Friends" do not visibly belong! 

Barclay and other Friends generally beg and 
push the question by reason of their assumptions at 
starting. Hence they bring the incautious into 



534 

their dogmas with marvellous plausibility and with 
a great display of logical fairness. One instance of 
this is the assumption that the primary meaning of 
a xcord is always one with its most important 
meaning. But it often happens that the secondary 
meaning of a word, as baptism, is at once its most 
important and its least frequent sense in scripture. 
Like circumcision, its primary meaning is the sign 
only ; its more important is its secondary sense, 
and refers to the heart and its purification. The 
phrase " The sure mercies of David n is also an 
example. Its secondary sense, referring to Christ, 
is the important one ! Thus, the primary sense of 
baptism respects the rite only ; it is used however 
for its archetype by a very fair metonomy, without 
merging its existence or its distinctness in its great- 
er. But Friends begin with the secondary mean- 
ing, and hence try to do away with the primary ; 
they think they seize the substance, and then they 
deny the entity of the sign. Let the candid judge ! 
Because they see us contending for the sign, they 
often infer that we oppose the substance ; they 
often say, •' if they had the experience of the matter, 
they would care less for externals v — which might 
be true, and yet externals be of divine authority. 
We say, they are of divine authority; and therefore 
mainly do we, from conscience toward God, main- 
tain them. 

There is a meaning in the rite baptismal, in its 
relations and implications, which is justly dear to 
the enlightened sensibilities of the christian. It is 
peculiar too — and little, it may be, understood even 



535 

by the church and the ministry. God has a visible 
family in the world, in which he regards his people 
" and their offspring with them," as " the seed of 
the blessed of the Lord." Is. 59 : 20, 21. Their 
relation to Him, and correlatively his to them, is 
most wonderful, gracious, and full of moment. 
Baptism does not make it. It pre-exists in the 
economy of gracious administration. Baptism finds 
it, owns it, illustrates, seals it. It is instituted in 
the order and offices of the church visible of Jesus 
Christ by his own most gracious appointment, in 
subserviency to the triumph of his mercy and " the 
fruit of the Spirit." It exists " that the residue of 
men might seek after the Lord, and all the gentiles 
upon whom my name is called ; saith the Lord, 
who doeth all these things." Acts, 15 : 17. It is 
in baptism appropriately that "this glorious and 
fearful name THE LORD THY GOD," is called 
upon the members of his visible family. This re- 
cognises the family relation. He who adopts them, 
as their Father, communicates his own name of 
glory and supersedes their former names of shame. 
Is. 44 : 1-5. 

Hence the proper form of the action should be, 
" Baptizing them into the name of the Father, and 
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." The reasons of 
this, as contra-distinguished from the method of our 
translation and of current usage, I will briefly state. 

1. The common phrase in the name of means 
merely by authority of. There is not so evident a 
propriety in expressing and repeating this in every 
instance of the performance, which is sufficiently 



536 

implied and proved without it. It is plainly done 
by divine authority. 

2. Where the sense of the phrase in the name of 
is found, there the original ev tq ovouqlTl is different. 
Acts, 3:6.1 Cor. 5 : 4. 

3. In this sense something ultimate, not mediate, 
is meant. Jf baptism wrought salvation, as infalli- 
bly as a miracle accomplished a cure, it would be 
ultimate ; and the propriety of saying, I do this ef- 
fectual thing in the name of Jesus Christ would be 
sensible. But baptism is not ultimate. It is me- 
diate, initiatory, symbolical alone. The phrase in 
question then is not pertinent. It is calculated to 
misrepresent the purport of the ordinance. It im- 
plies that the rite is ultimate and virtual. Again, 

4. The proper grammar of the original eig to 
ovoua requires a different phrase ; as, to, unto, or 
into. It refers to the family designation. When 
one is adopted into the household of another, the 
name of the family is assumed. The adopting act 
confers it ; the adopting ceremony signifies or de- 
clares it. Hence we are adopted and baptized into 
the family of God. We become visibly his chil- 
dren ; he, our Father. We are called by his name. 
Baptism enunciates this. Hence Paul dreaded even 
the impeachment of baptizing "into eig ro euov ovoua 
his own name;" as if he were about erecting a pri- 
vate concern, a separate and rival interest of his 
own! a church of Paul, not of Christ. 

5. The meaning of the proper phrase is compre- 
hensive and excellent. The name of Jehovah is 
that by which he is known. It includes whatever 



537 

manifests him. Thus is it the object of worship 
and of praise, of conformity and aspiration, as well 
as of knowledge and profession. The party is 
henceforth to be educated to Christ. He has sym- 
bolically " put on Christ." He has been publicly 
devoted "to the name of the Father, and of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost." To the same high 
and holy name, assumed as his, he is now to live. 
It becomes the obligation of his life to honor that 
name. Not to do it, is sacrilege. It is desecra- 
ting what is relatively holy. It is robbery of God. 
It is manifest and awful sin. And yet — it not so 
much makes the obligation, as recognises it. It is 
the obligation which rests equally in fact on all men. 
I do not say that there is not a special degree and 
form of obligation resulting from the solemnity — as 
an increase of light and privilege always enhances 
obligation, and as vows enhance it. 

By the way, we may see in what sense the nam- 
ing of the subject is connected with baptism. Chris- 
tening, as the rite is very improperly called, means 
with many only giving a name. If so, I say, it is 
not its human name, (which is strictly no part of 
the rite,) but its divine one alone. Acts, 15 : 17. 
How very superior are the implications ! 



OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 



Other denominations are accused by Friends, in 
reference to the sacraments, not only of general 
darkness, but of a judaizing and romanizing pro- 
pensity. In this they assume, not prove, that 

68 



533 

Christianity has no appropriate symbolical institu- 
tions. But this is exactly the question in disp ite ! 
Whatever is properly Jewish or mosaic must indeed 
depart with the abrogated economy to which it be- 
longs. But may they not be too hasty in cashiering 
every thing on the assumption that it is Jewish, and 
as such annulled 1 Not indeed if they are inspired; 
for when was any one ever too hasty in obeying 
God 1 If I could grant their inspiration, there would 
be at once an end of the argument. But as I sin- 
cerely believe them mistaken in that grand particu- 
lar, it will be at least consistent to argue the matter, 
If they say how shall we know what is abrogated 
and what is perpetual? I answer, 1. This is just 
such a question as Friends are fond of asking, sim- 
ply because they cannot answer it themselves. They 
have no " pastors and teachers " among them, who 
learn and hence are qualified to teach ; they are all 
inspired, and thence study and investigation are at 
war with the duty of waiting for the responses of 
the internal oracle. Thus they "have taken away 
the key of knowledge." This is the real cause of 
the doctrinal ignorance of the society ; and it is the 
inglorious occasion of thousands of questions, which 
they would be ashamed to ask if the inward light 
had not paralysed their powers and suspended with 
them the sources of instruction, which God hath 
ordained and blessed as ordinarily indispensable to 
doctrinal proficiency. How shall we know 1 they 
often ask ; how shall we discriminate 1 Answer, 
how can you help knowing, how can you fail to 
discriminate, if you have this omniscient light within 



539 

you T If you wish to know how we uninspired 
people come by our knowledge, we answer, by stu- 
dious and honest and prayerful application of mind 
to the inspired scriptures, and in no other ivay. This 
way you have never tried, and never can try, while 
you believe in your own inspiration. But 2, the 
scriptures fully enable us to discriminate ; though 
this is not vital to our present argument, which is to 
prove that Christianity hath its own symbolical insti- 
tutions, and that the holy eucharist is one of them. 
Many things were imposed on the jews "till the 
time of reformation ;" but when that "time" oc- 
curred, it brought with it baptism and the Lord's 
supper, too easy, significant, unbloody observances ; 
which in no wise encumber, and in many ways 
assist, the spirituality itself of the worshippers. 
This I can heartily and experimentally, I hcpe, 
attest. 

I define the Lord's supper thus ; A solemn cere- 
monial observance in ichich, by the distribution and 
participation of bread broken and wine poured, the 
church obey God in " showing forth the Lord's 
death " as the only and the ample atonement for 
the sins of men ; commemorating the expiatory death 
of Jesus Christ as the only medium of the remis- 
sion of sins ; confessing their ill-desert as trans- 
gressors of the law of God, and their grander sins 
as having been neglecters of his glorious gospel ; 
professing their faith in his doctrine, and their hope 
in his grace and advocacy; devoting themselves to 
his service forever ; expressing their love for each 
other, their benevolence to all men ; and expecting 



from, hit U fulness, as exalted to ike tkrame of 

the universe, a full supply of all that they need for 
time and for eternity, according to his promises. 

That this is sacrament of the New Trs:..ment 
according to the will of God., and as such incumbent 
on all nir .. I prove, ; the -onhiness of the event 
commemorated ; by its manifest ten leu : : sanctity 
and console the spirits of his worshippers : by d: 
dence from scripture. 

1 . I begin with considering the worthiness of the 
event commemorated in the Lord's supper. 

_ Whoever understands and accredits the nature 
of the atonement, and sees its immense importance 
in all our moral relations, will admit not only that it 
deserves to be commemorated or that no event evei 
did or ever can deserve such honor : but also that 
an institution, such as that now under considera- 
tion, is most worthy at once of the wisdom of God 
and the universal approbation of man. I trace the 
disaffection of Friends, therefore, to their real g 
l: ranee of the nature and glory of the atonement. 
Bui here it will be replied that Friends do believe 
this article of the catholic creed. To this I ans 
1 . That this is not true of all or of a very numerous 
portion o them. Many with whom I have con- 

e:sed are pure infidels on this primp topic. One 
of their most notable preachers in my own vicinitv 
has publicly vilified the doctrine, and said in the 
of day, (the letter that contains it has been printed 
in our public journals.) that he would prefer to 
receive the punishment due to his iniquity, rather 
than accept ;:' pardon on the terms of a suffering 



541 

substitute. He was no doubt in earnest in this 
declaration, and as much inspired as he is on any 
other article. I sincerely pray that his preference 
may not be his perdition ! What kind of a chris- 
tian community is that with whom such a vaunted 
preacher of Christ is still suffered to exercise an 
uncensured ministry I 61 But 2, I am scarcely 
convinced that one of them, with whom I have 
ever conversed, or whose writings 62 I have ever 
read, either clearly understands or properly believes 
the atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ. Barclay, 
Fox, and others do indeed say, now and then, that 
Christ died for us and was our sacrifice ; but this is 
so infrequent, so general, so transient, so opaque a 
confession, that it serves little other purpose than to 
prove how deeply they disparaged, and how superfi- 
cially they comprehended, that glorious transaction. 
A writer on astronomy, if he intelligently receiv- 
ed the copernican system, would not merely glance 
at the cardinal fact of the central position of the 
sun and the tributary movements of surrounding 
orbs ; he would signalize the illustrious truth, and 
make it as renowned in his treatise as it is in the 
economy of the firmament. What that fact is to 
the solar system, such is the doctrine of atone- 
ment to " the truth as it is in Jesus." To deny it, 
to omit it, to obscure it, to disparage it, is to quench 
the glory of the gospel and the hopes of the world. 
" In him was life, and the life was the light of men." 
In the sententious language of the beloved apos- 
tle, life and light are his accustomed tropes for sal- 
vation and knowledge. Thus, in Christ was salvu 



542 

tion through his atonement on the cross ; and this 
salvation properly understood, so illumines the mind 
that one knows, understands, sees, the things of 
duty and of God with correctness and unto salva- 
tion. "In him was life and the life was the light 
of men." The sentence is dense, but not mysti- 
cal ; it ever was and ever will be true. Observation 
perpetually confirms it ; they understand duty who 
have learned salvation. The cross is itself the key 
and the torch of all sound philosophy in universal 
ethics. It is " the light of men," because it is " the 
life '*' likewise : for Christ becomes " our life," be- 
cause he died for us, as an expiatory sacrifice to the 
glorious justice of God. Hence, when we hear of 
a religious teacher who transiently adverts to the 
death of Christ, but sees no attraction there to de- 
tain his thoughts, we know at least that he is so 
uninstructed in the central glories of the kingdom 
that he is incompetent to the work of the ministry, 
as one of those who " understand neither what they 
say, nor whereof they affirm." To this I can affix 
the seal of my own experience — and of my perfect 
conviction. I once sincerely compassionated the 
emptiness of the communion-service and the super- 
stition of those who revered it : but then I knew not 
the Father or Christ, and was deplorably ignorant 
of the atonement. When my mind was revolution- 
ed by the truth on that excellent doctrine, I repent- 
ed of my compassion "in dust and ashes/" and sin- 
cerelv " abhorred" my arrogance before God : hav- 
ing no hope except in •'•'Jesus Christ and him cru- 
cified'' as "an offering for sin," and having posi- 



543 

tively a sweet and glorious hope of " redemption 
through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according 
to the riches of his grace." 

As to the importance of the atonement, it can 
easily be proved from the scriptures that not a sin 
could be remitted without it ; that all the remissions 
ever granted previous to the advent of Christ, from 
Abel downward, were " for Christ's sake," who was 
to appear and suffer in behalf of sinners ; and that 
all that have been since granted were equally for his 
sake, who has appeared, and has " put away sin by 
the sacrifice of himself;" that he is the Savior and 
the only Savior of men ; that his principal design 
in coming into the world was " to save sinners " by 
dying for them ; for though he " left us an example," 
this was not the principal end of his manifestation. 
His example was not his atonement ; and " without 
shedding of blood is no remission." All the ap- 
pointed hundreds of millions of symbolical sacrifices 
that bled for 4000 years on the altars of God, were 
prefigurative of Christ and derived all their efficacy 
from their relation to him. They were all prospec- 
tively typical of " the Lamb of God, that taketh 
away the sin of the world ;" even as " the Lord's 
Supper" is commemorative and retrospectively typi- 
cal of the same self-offered victim. 

The philosophy of the atonement is — I must 
think — intelligible ; and, when understood, the most 
stupendous spectacle of moral grandeur of which 
in all our knowledge there is any example. The 
ineffable glory of God is no where apparent to our 
perceptions as it shines reflected from the cross. 



544 

His unsuffenng justice, his unspotted purity, his in- 
finite benevolence, his wonderful philanthropy, his 
eternal faithfulness, his unfathomable mercy and 
grace to guilty men, his consummate wisdom, his 
absolute supremacy, his perfect unchangableness, 
his inconceivable power, his matchless condescen- 
sion, his greatness and his glory ; all his perfec- 
tions, natural, moral, communicable, incommunica- 
ble, there harmonize, and blend, and blaze, with an 
effulgence which nothing else can illustrate. That 
God is a most perfect moral governor ; that his law 
is not to be broken with impunity ; that his admi- 
nistration is at once infinitely authoritative and in- 
finitely benign ; that he punishes, not for the sake 
of punishing, but for the sake of preserving the 
moral order of the universe; that the whole human 
race is sinful and so exposed to punishment ; that 
sin deserves the awful curse which the law of God 
denounces against it ; that his kindness to sinners 
shall never be exercised at variance with his kind- 
ness to the universe, nor mercy triumph at the ex- 
pense of justice; that mercy is that to which a sin- 
ner has no claim, no right, no title, from the law- 
giver ; that God is under no obligation to provide 
a Savior for the guilty, and that it was therefore 
grace, not debt, that one is provided ; that the law 
of God is " holy, just, and good," and that its pre- 
ceptive claims are never repealable ; that men must 
hence be brought to love the law in order to ap- 
prove of the gospel ; that the gospel is not merciful 
and gracious, if the law is not just and excellent; 
that it is hypocrisy to profess love for the gospel 



545 

while we secretly dislike the perfection of the law; 
that God pities whom he punishes, and " delighteth 
not in the death of him that dieth ;" that when God 
can answer, by an expedient of his own adoption, 
all the ends of punishment, through atonement and 
properly without punishment, he is then ready to 
pardon with eternal and infinite and generous be- 
nignity ; that the atonement did not make him 
essentially placable, since this was his character 
from everlasting, but that it qualified his adminis- 
tration to show the mercy of his nature in the sal- 
vation of sinners ; that he procured the atonement 
at an infinite expense, and will not suffer it to be 
made in vain ; that his providence is higher, and 
deeper, and larger, and stronger, than all the skill 
of his adversaries, and that his pleasure shall be 
accomplished in their overthrow, except they re- 
pent and become his friends ; that he is an infin- 
itely glorious and all-perfect being, a God of un- 
fathomable wisdom and illimitable intelligence, 
" over all and blessed forever :" these are some, 
and ouly a few, of the living truths which radiate 
from the cross as from their proper focus, and im- 
press the image of their own loveliness on the 
spirits of christians. They give us a glimpse of 
that glory which will enlighten the perceptions of 
the church triumphant forever. Many other truths 
are taught most impressively in connection with 
the cross ; many of a speculative, experimental, and 
practical character, which are all excellent, but 
which we cannot now enumerate. Suffice it that 
a genuine estimate of the moral glory of the atone- 

69 



546 

ment and of the salvation of the gospel, will always 
lead us to exclaim intelligently with Paul ; " But 
God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross 
of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the w T orld is 
crucified unto me, and I unto the world." 

An atonement has actually been made for sin, 
"that God might be just and the justifier of him 
that believeth in Jesus :" and it is important that the 
fact with all its instructive accompaniments should 
be universally reinembered. Christ has accordingly 
instituted that significant festival of faith, called 
" the Lord's Supper," saying ; " Do this in remem- 
brance of me." The commemoration of the love of 
Christ in the atonement is the commemoration of 
the sum total of religion. Not a duty, a privilege, 
a relation, but connects itself with that glorious af- 
fair ; and derives from it light, consolation, and en- 
couragement. Can any man degrade or doubt the 
symbol, who duly estimates the reality 1 Friends 
often demand why we do not practise the papal pe- 
diluvium or feet-washing, since this is equally 
enjoined by Christ 1 I answer, because it is not 
equally enjoined, nor enjoined at all as a positive 
observance ; because it was merely a symbolical or 
exemplary action of Christ, enjoining, as its whole 
moral force, kindness and service toward each other 
among all his disciples ; and enjoining this in the 
most affecting circumstances. John, 13: 13-16. 
What then is the wisdom of that man, Barclay or 
any other, who can liken the atonement to the pedi- 
luvium, and calmly ask, if one is to be commemo- 
rated, why not the other ? I adduce this as a proof 



547 

that none of them see the infinite worthiness of the 
atonement, that none of them properly understand 
or appreciate the vicarious death of the Son of 
God ! Or, if any of them do see its glory, their 
vision is fitful and faint. Their atmosphere is so 
misty and hazy that the very sun looks like the 
moon eclipsed through sach a medium. I scarce 
ever saw or heard or read a man or woman of them, 
whose knowledge of the matter was not shallow 
and puerile ; even when comparatively most sound. 
How could it be otherwise 1 Those who never 
learn, can never teach : and their inspiration does 
not vacate the sentiment. The orthodox of them, 
so called, as to the real science of the subject, the 
intellection of the things, the knowledge of the 
atonement with its relations and implications and 
glorious excellencies, are weak as water, shallow as 
the surface, almost as empty as mere verbiage can 
make them. Just so long as their preachers refuse 
to study theology, count it as a sin, get no know- 
ledge but what they steal from better sources and 
then credit it to the honor of the light within ; so 
long will their spiritual pedantry and religious 
quackery and doctrinal sottishness continue ! 

If Friends had obeyed Christ in this observance ; 
if they had " often " and every where commemo- 
rated his dying love, at the communion-table ; if 
they had followed the wisdom of scripture, instead 
of their own illusory light ; if this ordinance had 
been duly observed, explained, estimated among 
them from the beginning, they would not now 



548 

have — preachers who denounce the doctrine of 
atonement, the only foundation of hope, and so 
" deny the Lord that bought them !" It may be 
safely affirmed that to slight the distinguishing 
truths contained in that observance, is a uniform 
and certain symptom of fatal degeneracy ; and that 
it can no where be duly understood and honored 
where those truths are not ascendant and believed. 
It preaches the gospel to the very senses of men. 
In the bread that is broken, representing his man- 
gled body, and the wine that is poured, represent- 
ing his blood shed for our sins, are contained the 
hieroglyphics of redemptiou. It signifies the very 
vitals of evangelical religion. It has the same reve- 
lation to the scripture doctrine of justification which 
baptism sustains to that of sanctification ; and both 
these united are the religion of the Bible in epitome. 
" O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that 
ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Je^ 
sus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified 
among you V Gal. 3: 1. It could have been mani- 
fested to their " eyes," only symbolically, in the or- 
dinance of the Lord's Supper. 

2. The manifest tendency of commemorating the 
death of Christ at the communion-table, is an argu- 
ment for its divine authority. 

If its tendency is good and not evil, then cer- 
tainly nothing contrary to goodness is contained in 
it. But if that good is positive, great, favorable to 
the purest celebration of divine worship, this is of 
itself no mean argument in vindication of its divine 



549 

origin ; and, in connection with other and greater 
evidence, it is most veritable proof. " Prove all 
things ; hold fast that which is good." 

The actual tendency of a divine enactment is 
answerable to the design of God in its legisla- 
tion. What then was the design of the communion 
service 1 I answer— to diffuse and perpetuate the 
devout knowledge of Jesus Christ to the end of time. 
" This do in remembrance of me. For as often 
as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show 
the Lord's death till he come." 1 Cor. 11 : 24-26. 
" O foolish Galatians," &c. Gal. 3:1. 1 Cor. 10 : 
16-21. The tendency of this service then is seen 
in its nature and design. It tends to define, estab- 
lish, and promulgate Christianity. It tends to the 
vindication of true religion in the earth. It tends 
in the same precise ratio to save the souls of men ; 
to promote all their real temporal interests ; to con- 
sole the hopes and edify the faith of christians ; to 
designate the church ; to instruct all beholders in 
the cardinal things of the gospel ; to maintain gra- 
titude in the bosoms of men for the love of Christ ; 
to aid the just interpretation of the scriptures; to 
symbolize salvation ; to impress the mind with the 
very essentials of revelation ; to preserve the dis- 
tinguishing features of evangelical worship ; to 
show the nature of that one hope (foumj ed on the 
only medium of salvation) which alone the truth 
of God authenticates ; to rebuke all heretical in- 
novations in doctrine, experience, or practice ; to 
strengthen the trust of the believer; to bind in one 
the body of the faithful ; to afford a most affecting, 



550 

appropriate, sanctioned way of professing, and re- 
professing, the faith of Christ ; to afford a visible, a 
universal, and a frequent discrimination between the 
church and the world, between " the sacramental 
host of God's elect" and the bewildered tribes of 
the ungodly; to induce humility, self-examination, 
prayer, praise, and joy in God ; to habituate chris- 
tians to remember Christ and their infinite obliga 
tions to his love ; to remind them continually, " as 
often" as they so commune, of all their spiritual 
relations and prospects ; constantly to revive in 
their feelings the grand object of apostolic toils 
and cares, ••Jesus Christ and him crucified;" to 
make them think of others, imitate the love of 
Christ, and communicate the gospel to the desti- 
tute ; to deepen all their devout impressions ; to 
affect them with the expectation of their own death; 
to mature them for the heavenly state ; to deaden 
them to the world and its evanescent glory; to per- 
petuate all the moral lessons of the cross ; to testify 
the glorious fact of the resurrection of our Lord 
Jesus Christ from the dead ; to endear his name 
to his people ; and to promote the conversion of 
sinners. 

In short, what good end does religion sanction 
that the ordinance we are considering does not tend 
to produce \ It symbolizes the atonement of our 
crucified Lord : and what the atonement was in fact, 
such symbolically is the Lord's Supper. To this 
view I will anticipate two objections, which how- 
ever have been often urged. How, it is said, if the 
atonement was such in itself, such toward God, does 



551 

it hence follow that we should commemorate it in 
the symbol, since, what it was, it is and remains to 
be ; and since its nature would be just the same if 
the event was not so commemorated I To this I 
rejoin, that in addition to its influence upon the mo- 
ral administration of God and in the ultimate bless- 
edness of the faithful, it is adapted and designed 
indispensably to have a moral influence (of illumi- 
nation, sanctification, consolation, and worship) up- 
on the church and the world, which influence cannot 
be exerted or felt but by the due celebration of the 
Lord's Supper : so that while we have no idea (as 
have the Romanists) that there is any expiatory 
virtue in the symbol or the service, and none that 
our actions can at all alter or affect the intrinsic 
nature of the atonement, we do believe that our 
characters are altered in relation to the atonement, 
and the atonement changed in its relations to us, by 
our celebration of the Lord's Supper according to 
his appointment. Besides, in devout subserviency 
to Christ in his own ordinances, we receive " the 
Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that 
obey him." Acts, 5 : 32. Hence, as it is the will 
of God that such commemoration should be perpe- 
tual in the church, he blesses its due administra- 
tion, and produces, through the sanctifying virtue 
of his own most holy Spirit, that moral influence 
(which also the ordinance itself tends to exert) in 
the bosoms of the pious, under which they make 
a j uster and clearer estimate of religion, and are 
progressively transformed into the divine similitude. 
2 Cor. 3: 18. The objection rests on a total and 



552 

a very common mistake as to the nature of the 
atonement; which is not that measure of licentious- 
ness which some seem fatedhj to suppose. The 
atonement was not intended to accomplish the sal- 
vation of men in, but "from, their sins." Hence 
there is space intentionally left, after the atonement 
as such is consummated, for the action of moral 
influence and the scope of moral agency. Hence 
a man must still repent of his sins, and believe 
with his heart, notwithstanding the atonement ; or 
" Christ shall profit him nothing." The only way 
to be savingly interested in the atonement, or in 
Him who made it, is to — u repent and believe the 
gospel." A moral effect then must still be pro- 
duced on the spirits of men, and no less than that 
which the Holy Ghost denominates regeneration, 
or there can be no salvation even through the atone- 
ment. How worthy of the wisdom of God to make 
the doctrine of the atonement and the frequent 
symbolizing of its truth to the senses of men, to 
become the very means and the objective causes of 
producing that moral effect on their spirits ; by 
bringing them to consider, believe, approve, resem- 
ble, enjoy, inherit, and communicate, "the glorious 
gospel of the blessed God ! ?? Here we see two ex- 
tremes of error (and which is more hurtful I do 
not take on me to decide) to which men have 
been alternately prepense, and that in every age. 
Some must have all atonement, and nothing else : 
others, all internal subjective practical holiness, and 
nothing else ; no atonement. The former depre- 
ciate "the fruit of the Spirit," the necessity of per- 



553 

sonal obedience, the lasting obligation of righteous- 
ness, and the perfection of the law of God : the 
latter dishonor the law in another way, see not the 
necessity of the perfect moral government of God, 
substitute their own doings for the atonement, array 
mercy against justice, or make mercy in Jehovah 
such an attribute of weakness and variableness as 
would disgrace a man ; and so put the extinguisher 
of their own ignorance and effrontery on the glory 
of the gospel. Both extremes are wrong. 

Incidit in Scyllam qui vult vitare Charybdim. 

He sinks in Scylla, who would more avoid 
Charybdis' whirlpool, equally destroyed. 

They constitute the Scylla and Charybdis of the 
subject : — not so however as desperately to endan- 
ger the bark of faith, of which God is the pilot, 
truth the guiding star, and safety the course equi- 
distant from either of the ruinous alternatives. John, 
3 : 17, 18. 1 Tim. 1 : 15. Our Palinurus never 
sleeps, and when waking never errs. 

The other objection is one in which Friends pe- 
culiarly delight. It is this — of what avail is it to 
speak all these good things about the tendency of 
the ordinance, if it is still wanting in efficacy ? if 
thousands who observe it have never realized those 
excellencies to which the ordinance is said to tend? 
if millions even who have regularly eaten of that 
bread and drunk of that cup, have been bloody, 
persecuting, impure, incorrigible sinners, perpetrat- 

70 



554 

ing, as occasion served, all manner of sin, and be- 
ing at once a nuisance to society and a degradation 
to human nature 1 Version — if a good thing is 
abused, it ought to be disused ; if a divine institu- 
tion is not duly honored, it ought to be abrogated. 
Let us then abrogate marriage and every other di- 
vine institution. 

In order to make the objection available, or give 
it any efficacy, it ought to be shown (1) that such 
miscreants were intelligent and devout communi- 
cants ; and not merely that they did the material 
thing : for no ordinance of Christianity, nor even 
of Quakerism, professes any efficacy but by faith 
in its divine authority. Christianity tends manifest- 
ly, tends pre-eminently, to sanctify and save the 
world : but still it* has efficacy to save only where 
it is clearly and cordially accredited. Now, is it 
any proof against the ordinance that hypocrites 
have celebrated it, that apostates have dishonored 
it, that infidels have remained unblest by it 1 And 
it ought to be shown (2) that a divine ordinance 
is not to be estimated according to its own evi- 
dence, nature, and tendency ; but depends for its 
character upon the treatment it receives in a 
world of dark and ignoble traitors against heaven ! 
What, upon this principle, should we think of Christ 
himself! Was he as bad as the treatment he re- 
ceived 1 Thus the tendency of the Lord's supper 
is excellent, and remains an everlasting argument 
for its worth. We are not advocating its abuse or 
apologizing for its abusers. To say, as some have 
done, that there is no distinction or difference be- 



555 

tween tendency and efficacy, and that there is in 
any subject just as much of the former as of the 
latter, and no more, is just saying of every divine 
ordinance that it has no intrinsic character — that 
the Bible itself has none — and that its adorable 
Author himself, unless where his name commands 
its due efficacy — but, I forbear ! In the tendency 
of the ordinance, which to faith becomes its efficacy 
too, thousands and millions of God's elect have re- 
joiced before him, whose lives have evinced the 
proper fruits of worship and the reality of genuine 
faith in the atonement, which they were wont to 
commemorate. With ineffable delight have they ap- 
proached that sacred festival, and repeated " often " 
the privileged obedience, /never come to it but 
with an estimate which recollection deepens and ex- 
alts. " Herein is love : not that we loved God, but 
that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propi- 
tiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, 
we ought also to love one another." 1 John, 4 : 10, 
11. 2 Cor. 5 : 14, 15. Gal. 2: 20. I proceed fur- 
ther to evince the fact of the divine authority of the 
observance, 

3. From direct scripture evidence. Here allow 
me to pause, and wonder at the infinitely foolish 
anomaly of Quakerism. I do it too not without 
humiliation mingled with curious inspection ; for I 
was a Quaker and am a man. Poor human nature ! 
philosophy, by which I mean religion, requires me 
to look at thee by engrossment, as well as in detail ; 
and whenever thou art visible in the back-ground 
of the mirror of truth, to say — it reflects a picture 



556 

of which I am generically the original. Ought we 
not all to be humble 1 

And what man, seeing this, 
And having human feelings, does not blush, 
And hang his head to think himself a man ! — Cowpbr. 

Sunt lacrymae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt. — Virg. 

No fictions these, but stern realities ! 

We weep at things — who would not that is wise ? 

Cur kind is suffering ; and we sympathize. 

. Homo sum ! humani nil a me alienum puto. — Ter. 

I am a man ! a common tie 
Unites me to humanity. 

We may well question whether men ever saw 
the exact parallel of Quaker presumption and folly, 
error and pretension, all confounded in one re- 
ligious system, 

" Since Abel worshipped or the world began !" 

Fox, who pioneered the way, was a spiritual 
nonesuch. He boasts the highest kind of inspira- 
tion — God and he talking together with infinite fa- 
miliarity on every subject. One would think that 
all heaven was bent upon making his acquaintance, 
and crowding into his company. I would not here 
insinuate that he was not a curiosity in sober fact, 
even to angels. What wonderful "openings" he 
had ! and these not in theology alone ; but also in 
law, metaphysics, languages, arts, and sciences ; 
and especially in botany, chemistry, materia-me- 
dica, and astronomy; so that he once seriously 



557 

thought of becoming a practitioner of physic! 
What a prize would such a Galen prove in these 
days of cholera! Is it any wonder now that his 
skill, (which was not original at all in Barclay, 
Penn, and Sarah Grubb, for they learned the most 
of what they knew about the light within — they 
learned it all from George,) is it, I say, to be won- 
dered at that he should have skill, quite as extraor- 
dinary at least, in biblical antiquities, sacred her- 
meneutics, and theological criticism! or that the 
demonstration of these (inspired furniture though 
they be) should be constituted in part — and no 
very inconsiderable part either — by the result, as- 
certained to his own satisfaction and 'that of divers 
others equally or homogeneously wise, that the 
scriptures of the New Testament contain no such 
divine institution as the sacrament or religious ob- 
servance of the Lord's supper \ Soberly — if nothing 
else existed in my knowledge as a criterion by 
which to stamp fallacy and stupidity on their claim 
of inspiration, I should not hesitate, as a man and 
a christian and a minister of Christianity, to de- 
nounce the pretension of Fox and all his retinue, 
as equally preposterous in reason, monstrous in his- 
tory, and deleterious in practice ! Among other ill 
effects of the abominable whim of the society is 
this — to degrade all inspiration in their thoughts. I 
never saw a Quaker who could be held with a text 
of scripture, against the current of his prejudices. 
Tell them of what is declared in " the oracles of 
God" against a female ministry, and they will 
sometimes say — " O that was only the opinion of 



558 

Paul!''' Was it I How convenient for garrulous 
dames and spinsters of the society, that George 
could furnish them with a counter inspiration! And 
what if Paul was inspired to deliver to the church 
of God the glorious and most affecting eucharist, 
the Lord's supper I The answer is at hand. Since 
the new dispensation of the weaver's son, George 
the cordwainer, of Drayton in the Clay, Leicester- 
shire, the spirituality of matters hath been so asto- 
nishingly improved, so " clearly seen and testified 
to,'' that now no more are such " outward things of 
the letter" availing or obligatory. This George 
plainly testifieth. " And behold," saith William 
Penn, " behold the blessed man and men that were 
sent of God in this excellent work and service !" 
Truly ordinary reformers and iconoclasts were cy- 
phers to them. Luther was not inspired ; Melanc- 
thon was his pupil and the neophyte of his instruc- 
tions ; and as for Calvin and Cranmer, down to 
Baxter, Howe, and Jeremy Taylor, they confessed 
their knowledge to be mainly derived from the de- 
vout application of their powerful minds and pon- 
derous scholarship to the pages of a book, which, 
after all, they knew no better than to denominate, 
with religious and complacential awe, the word 
of God! Hence all the celebrated chieftains of the 
church, and lights of former ages, from whom THE 
GLORIOUS REFORMATION under God re- 
sulted and advanced, with all our peerless pro- 
testant immunities, retire aghast ; their fame col- 
lapses and their brightness dies, in contrast with the 
inspired oracles of Quakerism — oracles that throw 



559 

their collective splendor into dim obscurity, before 
that lucid welkin of day which has shone upon us 
so ravishingly, since the luminaries of the inward 
light have favored all Christendom with their in- 
spired discoveries ! It is a demonstrable fact, how- 
ever disgraceful to the spirituality of all the wor- 
thies above named and thousands of others it may 
possibly appear, it is nevertheless a fact that all of 
them, each to the day of his death, remained unde- 
livered from the serious faith of the divine institu- 
tion of the supper ! Is it any wonder then that such 
lights of science, 

Sagacious readers of the works of God, 
And in his word sagacious, 

as Bacon, Lock, Boyle, Milton, Newton, and their 
cotemporaries ; not to mention the more modern 
ones of Edwards, Dwight, Scott, Hall, Jay, Chal- 
mers, and others, equally splendid in the world of 
letters and in the firmament of piety ; is it any 
wonder that they should have been held in the same 
persuasion 1 I suspect, however, that if the veil 
could be lifted that secretes the ineffable glory, 
there might be witnessed, in the recollections and 
the praises of the entire celestial host of ransomed 
men, some manifest resemblance to the eternal ce- 
lebration, even there, of the same ceremonial! They 
have all " washed their robes and made them white 
in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore arc they 
before the throne of God, and serve him day and 
night in his temple ;" while " worthy is the Lamb 
that was slain," is their song. 



560 

If any Friend may chance to read this book as 
far as this, and cares candidly to examine the scrip- 
tural evidence in the case ; though I must confess 
to him that it is rather " outward " after all ; I do 
most kindly intreat him, notwithstanding the sport 
I have designedly made with that delirious enthu- 
siast whom he so religiously reveres. I entreat him 
candidly to consult and compare the following scrip- 
tures — remarking, that they are only a few of many 
that might be advanced ; and that the whole Bible, 
taken as one complete system of revealed truth, 
teems with the subject from beginning to end ; as 
eternity also does ! Matt. 26 : 26-30. Mark, 14 : 
22-26." Luke, 22 : 14-20. Acts, 20 : 7. 1 Cor. 
5 : 7, 8. 10 : 15-22. 11 : 17-34. Gal. 3 : 1. Rev. 
3:20. 19:9. 22:12-15. 

Friends ordinarily say, in regard to the alleged 
proof of scripture ; (1) that we do not understand 
it ; (2) that it is " not in the letter" or '-outward 
act " that the festival is to be celebrated ; (3) that 
it is not " the physical blood " [what other kind of 
hlood is there 1] of Christ that we are to drink ; (4) 
that it is all spiritual, and in the heart to be seen 
and done ; (5) that possibly the apostles might, in 
tenderness to the prejudices of the Jewish converts, 
have allowed or even for a time performed it ; (6) 
that in this age, however, it is of no necessity or 
use ; (7) that they enjoy sweet communion with God 
apart from all such gross and visible forms, and 
withal such cumbrous and expensive observances ; 
(8) that symbols and outward signs are childish un- 
der the gospel, and impede rather than aid pure 



561 

spiritual enjoyment, which delights in freedom and 
abstraction ; (9) that there is real elevation and 
sublimity in their spiritual way of keeping the feast ; 

(10) that one can scarcely imagine what horrid per- 
secutions, malignant superstitions, and bloody wars, 
have been occasioned by those " outward " things ; 

(11) that they know by happy experience every way 
the superiority of the manner of Friends ; (12) 
that it was only the Jewish passover that the Savior 
attended "the same night in which he was be- 
trayed ;" (13) that there he spoke only inciden- 
tally, as it were, and hence only one of the evange- 
lists records it, the order which modern professors 
so superstitiously over-rate, Do this in remem- 
brance of me ; (14) that we ought to celebrate the 
pediluvium or feet- washing, to take young children 
in our arms and put our hands on them and bless 
them, or to mimic any other public action of the 
Savior in a religious way and " in remembrance of 
him," as well and as much as to celebrate " often " 
the festival of " the Lord's supper ;" and (15) that 
there can be no conceivable sense or religious pro- 
fit in eating a crumb of bread and sipping a few 
drops of wine, now and then, and calling the super- 
stitious custom an act of piety and worship, well 
pleasing and acceptable to God ; which all that are 
enlightened in their way know much better how to 
appreciate as it deserves. 

O lux Dardaniae ! spes o fidissima Teucrum ! — Viro. 

O light most trusty, excellent, and wise ; 
How happy they who see it with their eyes ! 
71 



562 

O light transcendent, most benignant light- 
No wonder learned sages grope in night ! 

Once I actually believed in precise coincidence 
with their views : and I know that many, or perhaps 
all, of them, "verily think" the synopsis, substan- 
tially as I have given it above, is truth. God forbid 
that I should charge them with duplicity and hypo- 
crisy, as if they were practising for wordly ends a 
known system of imposture ! God is my witness 
that I love their persons and their souls ; and that 
in the spirit of love I have written the severest 
things, if such there are, in this treatise. But I 
have deliberately ridiculed their fundamental fan- 
cies — because it seems as if sober argument would 
less affect or expose their follies. This is my mo- 
tive — and nothing which they can say will deepen, I 
assure them, the sense I now have of accountability 
at " the judgment-seat of Christ." My reasons are 
already given for thinking irony and even sarcasm 
sometimes proper and in place, even in sacred mat- 
ters. Aetemitate phigo : my interests in time are 
few, and fast receding. 

What I have yet to offer, as it respects scripture 
evidence of the divine institution of " the Lord's 
supper," shall be confined mainly to a passage 
already referred to, 1 Cor. 11 : 17-34. All the 
postulate that I here propose is — 1. That this pas- 
sage contains truth, and that it is contradicted con- 
sequently by no other truth in the Bible or the 
universe; 2. That if it puts down, contradicts, 
utterly refutes the whole synopsis aforesaid, the 



563 

views of Friends are equally nullified, and the folly 
of their assumed inspiration proved. It was this 
very passage that first killed my own stupid dotage 
on the subject : and it would do the same ser- 
vice for any other educated and sincerely believ- 
ing Friend, if he would only dare to " come to the 
light " of its plain and certain sense, soundly and 
yet palpably interpreted. With as much confidence 
as ever Friend possessed, and infinitely better evi- 
dence than they ordinarily command, I declare that 
this simple passage ruins their whole system ; and 
that it is false, as by consequence Christianity is 
false too and all inspiration false, if their system is 
true. Unless a Friend will admit, for example, the 
possibility that this passage may condemn his views, 
he is not a candid inquirer ; if he will, let him can- 
didly inquire — and the result will ensue. To pre- 
judge may be inward light; but it is not honesty. 
" He that doeth truth, cometh to the light, that his 
deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought 
in God." Or, let Friends beware of " the light," 

if they wish to remain Friends ! I know of no 

better way. It is simply a mode of that way — to 
fix their orbs of vision wholly within ! 

I submit the following observations on it. 

1. It was no impalpable spirituality, such as 
Friends arrogate. There were sensible elements 
in the feast, called " bread " and the " cup of the 
Lord ;" and these connected with the actions of 
" taking and eating and drinking," what is called 
by the Holy Ghost, " the Lord's supper," and sym- 
bolically " the body and blood of the Lord." 



564 

2. It was instituted, however, not to satisfy the ap- 
petites; but for religious ends. " What ! have ye 
not houses to eat and to drink in 1" 

3. It was abused by the Corinthians, for which 
they are sharply rebuked, though the institution 
itself is not revoked on account of it. 20-22. 

4. The abuse itself demonstrates the fallacy of 
the etherial view. " For in eating every one taketh 
before other his own supper : and one is hungry, 
and another is drunken." Did this abuse ever 
occur at a Friend's communion-table — in the heart] 
Were spirituality and abstraction ever capable of 
an abuse of the sort ] If there had been no bread 
to eat, and no wine to drink, and no bona fide table 
spread, and no service palpable to the senses per- 
formed, how could the perversion occur ] a perver- 
sion so great that the apostle declares it was " the 
Lord's table " no longer, to such an one, but " his 
own supper ! One is hungry and another is drunk- 
en." Why] Because they " sat still," and consi- 
dered, and enjoyed "inward" communion] What 
scandalous impudence does it require, in the nine- 
teenth century, to assert any such thing ! What 
mental sottishness or romanizing servility to be- 
lieve it ! 

5. Does the apostle annul the observance or drop 
one disparaging inuendo against it, because of the 
evils it had already occasioned ] Just the contrary. 
He assures them of its sanctity ; exhorts them to 
prepare for it; 27, 28, threatens them with "judg- 
ment " for their abuses ; surrounds it with the high- 
est sanctions in the universe ; 29, and declares its 



565 

perpetuity to the end of time. 26. He declares also 
the propriety of its frequent observance. In all 
grave discourse, the comparative implies the posi- 
tive. " As often " as ye do it, implies that it is 
" often " to be done ; and other evidence of the 
word of God proves that it was ordinarily observed 
every week, on " the Lord's day," by primitive be- 
lievers. Besides ; it characterized the acts of as- 
sembling. The church "came together to eat;" 
33, " to break bread," &c. Acts, 20 : 7. 

6. Their abuse of it had brought down on them al- 
ready the divine judgments of sickness and prema- 
ture death, in many instances. " For this cause 
many are weak and sickly among you, and many 
sleep." Christians were cut off judicially, as Moses 
was, for an example to others ; although it was well 
with them in the end or rather after it. There was 
an epidemic at Corinth, on account of this abuse of 
the Lord's supper, and " many" were afflicted with 
it, even unto death. I have no doubt at all that mo- 
dern pestilences, and remarkable instances of wan- 
ing health and sudden or untimely death, may often 
have a relation to a similar abuse, which ought to 
make us all " examine ourselves." To contemn 
the death of Christ is to defy our own. " For if we 
would judge ourselves, we should not be judged." 
Our health and life are held absolutely in the hand 
of God. 

Friends will here probably smile. And why 1 
Because they spiritualize the words " sickly, weak, 
sleep," and so forth. I only say, smile on. I did 
not undertake this treatise, to pursue the serpent of 



566 

error through every sinuosity of his labyrinth ; or 
the soaring genius of presumption through all the 
sublimities of its flight. By literalizing or spirit- 
ualizing one or the other, as suits them, they often 
succeed, with great sincerity and some specious- 
ness, in evading the truth. 

7. The great end for which " the Lord's Supper" 
was instituted is here declared: to "show the 
Lord's death till he come.'' His second coming 
in the end of time is here referred to demonstrably. 
The interval then is to be occupied in his church by 
commemorating his death and anticipating his last 
advent. If the death of Christ be a matter of in- 
finite importance and glory ; if God and man are 
both incalculably interested in it ; if it was expect- 
ed in prophecy, prefigured in rites and types and 
sacrifices, desired and respected in the worship of 
the ancients since infant time ; if from everlasting 
it entered into the all-wise scheme of God that his 
Son should thus " die, the just for the unjust;'' if 
he " verily was fore-ordained before the foundation 
of the world, but was manifest in these last times 
for us," as " a lamb without blemish and without 
spot,*' that "with the precious blood of Christ" we 
might be '-'redeemed ;" if these things are true ; if 
the crucified Savior is the centre and the sun of 
the redemption system, around whom all other lus- 
tres revolve dependent and tributary ; I can see a 
little of •'•'the manifold wisdom," and the manifest 
condescension of God, in the enactment of u the 
supper of the Lamb." 



567 

" Glory be to God who gave us, 
" Freely gave his Son to save us ; 
" Glory to the Son who came !" 

Suppose Friends had always understood, profess- 
ed, and honored " the Lord's Supper," as we main- 
tain that God here requires them to do ; would it 
ever have become questionable — to use no sterner 
word — whether they were infidels or not ? Whe- 
ther their preachers knew the simplest characteris- 
tic elements of Christianity or not 1 Would such a 
schism on cardinal points, as now exists among 
them, ever have probably occurred X Still, possibly 
it might ; as we have reason to know. 

Look at 2 Cor. 5 : 18-21, and see what a centre 
it occupies, and what a circumference it fills, in the 
high diplomacy of the ambassadors of Jesus Christ. 
" God was in Christ reconciling (or atoning) the 
world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses 
unto them." This is the grand fact of Christianity. 
The proposition refers to the crucifixion. What a 
scene ! How dark, inscrutable, portentous ! All 
nature sympathizes and sickens. The heavens are 
bathed in darkness. A night, terrific and unnatu- 
ral, hangs on the fi rmanent. The sun suffers an 
unwonted eclipse or retires in deepest shades ; and 
day dies too. And "Jesus, when he had cried 
again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And 
behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain 
from the top to the bottom ; and the earth did 
quake, and the rocks rent; and the graves were 
opened, and many bodies of the saints that slept, 



568 

arose." Who can interpret a scene like this ! Is 
the universe confounded ! Are the dead and the 
living changing places ! But greater are the moral 
wonders than the natural. Behold that sufferer on 
the cross,, midmost of the three ! There is inno- 
cence, perfect, stainless, unparalleled innocence ! 
See that form ! The hands and feet stream blood. 
The head is bowed in death. Why was it so I 
Was heaven conscious of the mutiny that bore him 
off! Why did not God prevent it ] Why did not 
" ten legions of angels," the armed soldiery of the 
heavens, Luke, 2 : 13, rurhot fttpanftag ovpanov, in- 
terpose for his rescue ! Is it a crisis beyond the 
reach of providence, a dilemma too terrible for the 
wisdom of God ! Is it the unmanageable uproar 
of hell ; and is all creation flying off from the Crea- 
tor \ Is there no virtue, no power in the universe, 
equal to the exigency ! Or, is sin culminating above 
the throne of God, and menacing the catastrophe 
of all things ! Hark ! a voice, and an inspired one, 
solves the mystery forever. n God was in Christ 

RECONCILING THE WORLD UNTO HIMSELF, NOT IMPUT- 
ING THEIR TRESPASSES UNTO THEM." The plot is 

now developed ; the tragedy performed. Surely 
we ought to ,; be reconciled to God," who gives 
such demonstration that he is cordially willing to 
be reconciled tons. -'Only acknowledge thine ini- 
quity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord 
thy God :" saith the prophet. Truly he will "not 
impute iniquity" to us who believe in his name, 
since he has imputed it to one who died for us. 
'•'For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew 



569 

no sin ; that we might be made the righteousness 
of God in him." 

All was willing, love inspired it ; 
Jesus chose it ; God required it ; 

Love the prompter, love the spring : 
Who was injured by the measure ? 
He whose love esteemed it pleasure ? 

He who chose the suffering ? 

I should like to see the christian who thinks such 
benefit as this deserves not to be commemorated 
appropriately, and in all its affecting and glorious 
implications, to the end of time. " The Lord's 
death " — what an expression ! " For as often 

AS YE EAT THIS BREAD, AND DRINK THIS CUP, YE DO 

show THE LORD'S DEATH till he come." 
Consequently, 

8. Paul instituted it at Corinth originally, 
when he there first " planted " the gospel. Co- 
rinth was from Jerusalem about one thousand miles. 
When Paul entered that voluptuous metropolis of 
idolatry and heathenism, his future converts were 
" gentiles carried away after dumb idols even as 
they were led." Here he built on no other man's 
foundation ; but " as a wise master-builder he laid 
the foundation " himself. What a fair field for the 
ctherial spirituality of Quakerism ! He could now 
have instituted "silent meetings," a female ministry, 
and a most impalpable worship ; without sacraments, 
ordinances, instruction, or forms of any kind. He 
could have told them of " the seed, the life, the 
principle, the fund of the soul, the silence of all 

72 



570 

flesh." and all that heathen nonsense — if his inspi- 
ration had only been identical with that of Fox. 
Instead of all this counterfeit imposture, he preach- 
ed to them •'• the unsearchable riches of Christ ;" 
taught them to render •• thanks to God for his un- 
speakable gift" — by which he meant not the in- 
ward light, buf the gift of his Son to die for us ; 
instituted baptism and u the Lord's supper." and 
adverts to the circumstance that he had so done, 
when he blames them for the sin of abusing so sa- 
cred and precious a favor. This he asserts, and at 
the same rime. 

9. He solemnly testifies the divine authenticity of 
the ordinance. " For I have received oe the 
Lord, that which also I delivered unto you. that 
the Lord Jesus., the same night in which he was 
betrayed, took bread." skc. Not only did Paul en- 
act it at Corinth, but this he did as the result of 
special revelation before received from the Lord. 
Paul never saw Christ in the days of his flesh. He 
saw him indeed by miraculous apparition after the 
Lord was glorified. The Savior appeared to him 
on purpose ; told him of this institution ; and or- 
dered him to erect, honor, explain it, in his church. 
Is this true I Then what a fiction is Quakerism ! 
What a synopsis of errors do their reasonings fur- 
nish ! How wild and jaundiced are their " views " 
in religion ! 

10. The order. •• This do in rememerance 
of me," is here amplified and confirmed. It is 
repeated twice by Paul; once after either ele- 
ment. Of what avail is it for infidelity in drab 
now to insinuate, that it was spoken incidentally ! 



571 

tliat it occurs in Luke alone, and that we estimate 
its importance extravagantly ? Is not the inspira- 
tion of Paul as good as that of Luke ? Neither of 
them was present at the scene ; but were they both 
inspired? Then is their testimony one, and that 
the testimony not of man but of God. Has God 
then changed his mind since Quakerism arose to 
arrogate its oraculous interpretation? Has he as- 
certained by experience, that his original plan of 
perpetuating these blessed memorials till the end 
of the world, and the second coming of our glorious 
Redeemer, was too defective and short-sighted to 
be sustained ? O Quakerism ! " how long wilt thou 
not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord ? 
And now behold, the hand of the Lord is upon 
thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun !" 

I call heaven and earth to witness that Quaker- 
ism is not Christianity : and while as a witness I 
testify against them, in the name of my own glorious 
Master, I ask all men to tell what are their protes- 
tations worth of respect for the scriptures? The 
Bible is the word of God, and it will be highest 
or — under foot ! It is paramount or nothing. 

Through faith he [Moses] kept the passover, and 
the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the 
first-born should touch them. Heb. 11 : 28. Ye 
are come — to the blood of sprinkling. Heb. 12 : 24. 
For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us : 
therefore let us keep the feast. 1 Cor. 5 : 7, 8. 

Do Friends object, that the use of such obser- 
vances after all does not appear ? I answer, That 
is not the question. It is simply — are they divinely 



572 

instituted 1 If they are, then their obligation in- 
stantly results ; and that whether we can see the 
wisdom of them or not. But perhaps a number of 
uses may be discerned, even by us. They are di- 
vinely appointed badges of subjection to the gospel ; 
and as such they discriminate appropriately the vi- 
sible disciples and family of Christ, methinks that 
one of their uses appears just now : they serve to 
detect a certain spurious Christianity that would 
pass current for divine ! they expose a sui generis 
style of piety that pretends a more perfect intimacy 
with God, while it despises them ! they demonstrate 
the temper of Quakerism. 

The sacraments are a plain and divinely insti- 
tuted test of our obedience. They are like " the 
tree of the knowledge of good and evil ;" that is, 
the tree that gives knowledge, or makes known, 
or indicates, or stands as a test, " in the midst of 
the garden." God has employed such outward and 
easy indices of piety from the beginning. Only, the 
primitive tree condemned them that touched it, and 
ordered men away : these condemn them that ne- 
glect it, and order men to approach " with a true 
heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts 
sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies 
washed with pure water." I knew one compara- 
tively eminent preacher of the society, who used to 
say, in his public communications, something of 
this sort ; showing that his convictions were at least 
lamed and limping with an half-perception of the 
sense of scripture on the article ; " However, 
Friends, let every man be fully persuaded in his 



573 

own mind. Some that go to these outward sacra- 
ments are, I doubt not, sincere. It is as far as they 
see ; and I would not condemn them. But for one, 
and for me, I can say that it appears not required !" 
Alas! more inspiration! Is it then "required " of 
others t and not of him 1 Where has God issued a 
dispensation for rebels of the society 1 God does 
not require it of some ! Does he then require it of 
others 1 What ! and license some to disobey his 
own ordinances ; that is, license some to sin against 
his authority, to depose the Lawgiver of the uni- 
verse, and erect George Fox in his place 1 " It is 
not required of me !" What a discovery ! He is to 
be excused from the family-table of the children of 
God! absolved from the duties, and yet instated 
in the privileges of salvation ! Nay, privileged sub- 
lime to ride in the car of his own lucid imaginings, 
" above all that is called God, or that is worship- 
ped." And why is he so privileged 1 Plainly because 
of his attainments. Paul was a dwarf, a pigmy, a 
babe, to him ! What a pity he had not lived about 
eighteen centuries earlier ; the whole college of 
apostles and evangelists might have gone to school 
to him ! Seriously — I knew the man, and respected 
him. He used to say in my hearing many sound 
and good things. I am as far from being his foe, 
or his personal contemner, as I am from believing 
his system. My heart pities his memory! He knows 
better now. Eternity has taught him the truth — I 
even hope in Christ to his exceeding and eternal 
joy, as well as to his wonderful correction and re- 
form ! I so hope, however, not on account of liis 



574 

Quakerism, but in spite of it ; and submit the ques- 
tion to God. 

Say the apostles of the Lamb, " We are of God. 
He that knoweth God, heareth us ; he that is not 
of God, heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit 
of truth and the spirit of error." By the christian 
sacraments, I think, the spirit of Quakerism may 
be known. In their crucible, its gold comes out 
dross. It is " the spirit of error." And if " error " 
betokens a congenial " spirit," it is not innocent. 

But while Friends retrench all the ordinances of 
Christianity, they perpetuate their own. Plain lan- 
guage, plain dress, and plain address, are their 
three sacraments. The pope has seven : Christianity 
only two. Theirs are the badges, however, not of 
Christianity, but of Quakerism. They indicate 
only — a Friend. I believe they are absolutely anti- 
christian. Who ever commanded such things'! "Nei- 
ther shall they wear a rough garment to deceive." 
See Zechariah, 13. dp'with Dr. Scott's notes. The 
subject is almost too low and disgusting to treat 
seriously. I will, however, briefly examine some of 
their positions, in a style free, perhaps colloquial. 

As to plain language, they say, that it is gram- 
matical, as ours is not ; that it is scriptural ; that 
ours originated in pride, and therefore ought not to 
be upheld ; that if Friends do not maintain singu- 
larity in these things, they will be more in danger 
of losing their distinctive character and mingling 
with the world ; that their plainness restrains, in a 
salutary way, their youth and others ; and that the 
Master wore a seamless coat. 



575 

The pretence of a grammatical conscience, is ra- 
ther ridiculous ; especially when all their correct- 
ness regards the number only ; for notoriously they 
abuse the case and person more than others — How 
does thee do ? Let us parse it at our leisure ; remem- 
bering that it is a sample of their address to one 
individual, in the second person ; a specimen of 
their common mode of conversation. Does is not 
second person at all ! thee is in the objective, not 
nominative case — what governs it 1 and there is ho 
nominative in the sentence for the verb does do! 
Instead of How doest thou ? which they almost ne- 
ver say ; and instead of How are you ? which the 
world's people say : they conscientiously say, all for 
the sake of grammar, How does thee do ? Is thee 
going out to-day ? Will thee ride ? 

With Friends it seems a good saying for polemi- 
cal effect, to allege its scriptural character. But is 
this valid in their service ? (1) There is nothing 
analogous in the fact. When the Bible was writ- 
ten, the comparatively modern usage, that makes 
the singular and plural one in addressing an indi- 
vidual, or rather substitutes the latter for the former, 
was unknown to all languages : at least no such 
use obtained on earth as that now almost universal. 
Consequently, there was only one way. If the 
same state of things had then existed, which now 
exists touching the matter, and the scripture had 
then employed the singular alone, and laid great 
stress on the observance, where all the world used 
the plural ; and if the scripture had so made itself 
singular on the point, the case would have been, 



576 

as now it is not, worthy of citation. (2) An argu- 
ment from their " secondary rule " always seems 
like condescension in them ; a conformity to our 
way. If we only had an inspired sentence in the af- 
fair, as Fox said he had when his conscience and his 
preaching stickled on the article so pertinaciously, 
it might be vastly convenient ; for then we should 
knew. But (3) if Friends go to the scripture, let 
them honor the whole precedent. "And Abraham 
bowed himself to the people of the land, even to 
the children of Heth. And he lifted up his eyes 
and looked, and lo, three men stood by him : and 
when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the 
tent-door, and bowed himself toward the ground/' 
Abraham was a gentleman ; a man of good man- 
ners, who thought it right, by customary indica- 
tions, to express outwardly his inward regard for 
others. So was Paul ; so were all the saints of 
scripture. " Most excellent Theophilus. lam not 
mad, most noble Festus :" which last was spoken 
to a heathen and a profligate magistrate, out of re- 
spect to his station and office in society. " Be cour- 
teous : in honor preferring one another ; honor all 
men ; honor the king ; pay ye tribute also,*' a mili- 
tary tax or impost to a military and heathen empe- 
ror ! ! " Render to all their dues : honor to whom 
honor.*' But citations endless might be made to 
show that ill manners, rudeness, voluntary awk- 
wardness, a studious plainness of demeanor, gra- 
tuitous singularity, refusing all sensible expressions 
of respect for others, the utmost formality in op- 
posing all forms, and the like notions, are entirely 



577 

unlike the scriptural way. Acts, 16: 30. 27: 10,21, 
25. 1 Pet. 3:6.; I believe they are often the mere 
cloak of elements as unlovely as spite, envy, sordid 
feeling, pride, ignorance, bigotry, and very much 
of bad habits and ill breeding : and that all these 
things are precisely contrary to the temper and 
manners of the gospel. 

Now suppose I grant, what Penn especially so 
much asserts, that the plural form originated in 
pride — what of it 1 Is not usage the arbiter of lan- 
guage, and has it now any such affinity 1 



-usus 



Quern penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi. — Hor. 

With usage is the dynasty of speech ; 

Its power and right, its rule and sense, to teach. 

Besides, it is wretched casuistry, passing over the 
nature and utility of a thing, to reject it, because, by 
burrowing into antiquity, it may appear that some- 
body introduced it in connection with a matter of mis- 
chief, or from an evil motive. The position proves 
too much. It proves that the word solemn 63 and a 
thousand others ought never to be used in christian 
worship. It proves that one ought conscientiously 
to differ from universal usage in any thing, whose 
origin appears, on thorough and learned inquest, to 
have been connected with evil, or which was intro- 
duced from a bad motive. This would retrench for 
for us a multitude of innocent usages. On a more 
enlightened principle have Friends acted in one in- 
stance at least — in adopting the title of Quaker. 

73 



578 

Its good origin is more than questionable. Gervas 
Bennet. Esq. the Derbyshire justice, (none the bet- 
ter he for the good origin, Benedict, blessed, which 
his surname certainly had,) gave it to them in 1650, 
from motives which Friends would have to take 
leave of their inspiration before they could refer to 
a good origin. Well, let us see. The inquisition 
is evil ; indulgences are no better ; the crusades 
were not very crood ; the institution of cardinals is 
bad enough : and all these papal evils, from no good 
motive, were introduced within about a century of 
each other, some six or seven hundred years ago, 
in the midnight of the dark ages. We have all 
heard of the dignity and " eminence " indicated by 
a cardinal's hat, and of the farcical ceremony of its 
presentation. It is a large umbrageous broad-brim, 
whose associations of venerableness, since first in- 
troduced into England, have bordered broadly upon 
sacred, in the estimate of our ancestors. Hence the 
almost instinctive awe which some of us have for 
such a religious covering of the head masculine. It 
is questionable if any other cope or canopy of the 
kind indicates as much piety and wisdom and ven- 
erableness. Antiquarians tell us that previously 
there were no hats in England, Scotland, or Ireland, 
of that expressive, right reverend, and most patri- 
archal cut and fashion. Besides, they have ano- 
ther advantage — the instinctive associations of in- 
fallibility ! It is all owing to a proud origin that 
such hats appear even in our own days. But will 
Friends insist that they are intrinsically wicked ; and 
call every man a cardinal that appears abroad so 



579 

qualified ; and suspect an inoffensive citizen possi- 
bly, of a treasonable league with the tyrant of 
Rome, either prospective as a candidate or consum- 
mate as an ally, should he be seen in the street per- 
ambulating, under the dignified circumference of 
such a worthy conservatory I Broad-brims, for 
aught I know, are as innocent as umbrellas ; if not 
of the same species. They are very innoxious 
things ; and for the life of me, I cannot see the ma- 
lignity intrinsical, resulting simply from the evil 
origin they unquestionably had ! I confess that I 
always think of a cardinal astrut, when I meet a 
specimen of very large dimensions ; although it 
differs in color entirely from the canonical one, and 
although its owner may be too solemn in his con- 
templations to think or mean any such thing. But 
I pass to another illustration. Shaving the beard 
certainly originated in pride. It is a comparatively 
modern custom, wholly unscriptural — so far as ge- 
neral precedent extends ; 2 Sam. 10, and was in- 
vented notoriously by the exquisites and petit-mai- 
tres of a by-gone age. When first introduced, it 
was scouted as fantastical, effeminate and unnatu- 
ral, degrading and unmanly ; and to this day some 
of us know, by our conformity to the degenerate 
custom, that it is expensive, time-consuming, trou- 
blesome, and often painful. Still, Friends them- 
selves are all in that ' outward ' observance. On 
their own principle, it is very unspiritual, to say the 
least of it ! Is it not a useless conformity too to 
"the way of the- world's people 1" What au evil 



-jusiu it had With how many is it a t:\Utbusi- 
ntsi of pride and vanity and wasted time ! 

That wre ight to be singular gratuitously, sin- 
gular for its own sake, is : sentiment fit for the 
creed of misanthropy alone. I :: .sider it an e 
to differ from any man on any subject. Plainly I do 
it only because : n s:me points it is a gieatei evil 
not to differ. " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
thyself," is the rule. " And who is my neighbor 1" 
Answer — any one whom you can benefit or inji 
any man who is related ro you in any proximate 
way : a Jew a : .1 are a Samaritan; a Samaritan, 
if you are a Jew; and any human being, black or 
white, swarthy or florid, if you are a christian. A 
christian is the only genuine friend of the species on 
the foot-stool of God. He loves them not less, but 
more, because he tries to frustrate their errors 
convince, correct, and reform them. And shall he 
advertise an opposite creed in his manners or his 
aress I:' he ~:-t^t = c ::.s::-:i:: iv.si;-*. :-.- '.;■;.:■;. e s - 
tionably he ought, his conscience is open to evi- 
lence, and ready to be rectified •• by manifestation 
of the truth." 

Not that he peeTishly rejects a mode 
Because the world adopts it. If it bear 

T .1 r ? : i ::. z hzi : I f 2.: : . / : : t ; 5 : : ~ ::';:■:: *e:«e. 
And :e::; ; ; = ;> :..;.-- :hi:. ::' :r:f w .;■::?.. 
He puts it on, and for decorum sake 
Cin — Ti: :: :';: 1= r:i:f: '"'.'. j i = she 

Some friends. I well ki allege thai we en 

'"'■'- ' ' ~ ~ - '- ~ ~ ;::■-.-::' :"=.:: : :':.--: 



581 

they do not lay stress upon the fashion of the rai- 
ment ; that they leave every one to himself in the 
matter. This I beg leave to doubt. I remember 
too much to believe it. Why have Friends written 
such a quantity about it, if it were a thing compa- 
ratively indifferent with them] Does inspiration 
treat of trifles so voluminously ] Do they wish to 
provoke me to tell and to quote all I know on the 
subject! I hope not. Meanwhile, Actions speak 
louder than words ; as saith the proverb. I pro- 
pose a test — Show me " a public Friend," approved 
and eminent in labors, with clothes decently and 
moderately similar to those of other gentlemen — 
not quakerized notoriously ! Show me such an one 
with a comfortable double-breasted surtout, or with 
coat and under-dress of blue, or black ! Pro- 
duce me such a sample, and I will believe that 
you state the subject authentically ! Till then, I 
must really believe that such a vara avis in terris is 
a bird o-f Utopia only ; and that, should such an one 
actually appear, and exercise his "openings" among 
you, it would mystify the light, and grieve the bow- 
els, and incur the rebuke, of a whole society. To 
be plainer — it is all frivolous to aver that you care 
nothing for " plain " conformities ; and you know 
it ! Have I forgotten one of your periodical " que- 
ries," about " plainness of speech, behavior, and 
apparel V and the " careful " observance of the 
same which it solemnly enjoins 1 

But, you say, our reasons are religious. Are 
they 1 Why then are they not christian too 1 Has 
the Captain of solvation appointed a religious wii- 



582 

form for his soldiers \ If not, how dare others do it 
in his name 1 How dare they misrepresent his mind 
and will on the point \ How dare they caricature 
his religion along the streets'! How dare they make 
their youth ridiculous in dress and address, distress 
their feelings, and subject them to wanton jeering, 
insult, outrage, from the brute mob 1 " Ah ! how 
the cross is slighted ! Is it ? What cross 1 One 
of your own making, your own will-worship, and not 
at all the cross of redemption or of the Redeemer ! 
" Why ! did not he wear a garment without a 
seam V Indeed he did :■ — but it differed as much 
from broad-skirts and buttonless drab, as reason 
differs from fanatical ignorance. He wore, beside 
his under-dress which the soldiers parted among 
thern, John, 19 : 23, 24, a large flowing robe or 
over-garment, called by Dr. Campbell " a mantle :" 
this the soldiers would not rend, obviously because 
of its texture of excellence, curiously woven. They 
cast lots for it whose it should be. It was too valu- 
able to be torn. It had probably been presented to 
him as an expression of esteem and reverence, or as 
an offering of pious gratitude. Its seamless cha- 
racter proves not its plainness, but rather its taste- 
fulness, its worth and splendor. In short, we have 
no reason to think the Savior or his disciples were 
ordinarily distinguished by their costume. The fine 
rule of Dr. Watts, Dress so as to escape observation, 
avoiding singularity and extremes, seems to have 
been theirs. I would add — Dress moderately, mo- 
destly, comfortably, honestly. Peter was known by 
his speech as a Galilean ; and perhaps the others. 



583 

I know of none but the Pharisees whose dress dis- 
tinguished them. Matt. 23 : 5. These put much of 
their religion in the shape and possibly the color 
and size of their clothes. It is a cheap mechanical 
sanctity, very ostentatious and rather spurious, to 
advertise one's religion in the appearance of his hat, 
coat, and equipage. There may be such a non- 
descript as a spiritual dandy! and such a quality as 
holy finesse. If a man has religion, and cares to 
have it, it will ordinarily appear in a proper way and 
at a proper time. And much more should we care 
for appearances in the sight of God than in the 
sight of men. We should take care of our reputa- 
tion — in heaven ! But how great, and " outward " 
truly, how over done and spiritually fantastical, is 
the pains-taking of men and women Friends to 
dress — precisely so ! 

Truth is truth, whoever says it : and on this prin- 
ciple I advert to the saying of a very worthless man ; 
conceding its bad origin, while I commend the sen- 
timent it contains. " If the Maker of all had been a 
Friend, what a drab-colored creation we should 
have had !" Instead of this, the eternal architect and 
original of all things, has implanted the principles 
of taste, and the sense of beauty, as well as of uni- 
versal harmony and elegance, in every human being : 
and stored the world with an exuberance of well- 
adapted objects to attract and gratify so pure and 
innocent an endowment. God hath thus made man ; 
and thus made all nature " beauty to his eye and 
music to his ear." How inimitable, how rich, how 
variegated, the hues of a flower-garden ; an autum- 



554 

rial forest I or the tints of glory that adorn the Occi- 
dent on a tine summer's evening. How grand and 
imposing a spectacle is old ocean, rolling in its own 
expanse. How ravishing and splendid the scene 
of the firmament, glowing with innumerable stars ; 
" with living sapphires," as Milton calls them — at 
(as Barbauld gives it) ;; the dead of midnight and 
the noon of thought !" how srorsreous the counter- 
part of all these glories, peering as from an equal 
subterranean vault, seen thousands of leagues be- 
low the reflecting surface of some sylvan lake ! 
How inspiring and symphonious the songsters of 
the wood ! They praise the Creator, while man is 
mute and inconsiderate of him. But we speak of 
clothing, not minstrelsey. " Consider the lilies how 
they grow — Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed 
like one of these. If then God so clothe the grass, 
which is to-day in the field, and to-morrow is cast 
in the oven ; how much more will he clothe you, 
O ye of little faith." Thus all his works concur 
and speak his praise. 

And all are under One. One spirit — His, 
Who wore the platted thorns with bleeding brows, 
Rules universal nature. ]S"ot a flower 
But shows some touch, in freckle, streak, or stain 
Of his unrivalled pencil. He inspires 
Their balmy odours, and imparts their hue*. 
And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes. 
In grains as countless as the seaside sands. 
The forms with which he sprinkles all the earth. 
Happv who walks with him ! whom what he finds 
Of flavor or of scent in fruit or flower. 
Or what he views of beautiful or grand 



585 

In nature, from the broad majestic oak 

To the green blade that twinkles in the sun, 

Prompts with remembrance of a present God. 

His presence, who made all so fair, perceived, 

Makes all still fairer. Cowper. 

The senses are not sin ; nor is their regular and 
temperate gratification wrong. Is any man so sto- 
ically philosophical in his pseudo-christianity as to 
profess that he eats, for example, merely from a 
consideration of ulterior results, as the health and 
strength of his physical system ; and counts it sin 
to relish his food in the process of mastication I 
It is the inordinate indulgence of the bodily appe- 
tites, or their irregular and iniquitous gratification, 
that constitutes sin in the sight of God. Christianity 
is intended to suit and discipline, to tutor and per- 
fectionate our total manhood, in the best possible 
manner and to ends equally and superlatively good. 
We are to " use the world as not abusing it ;" to 
enjoy without excess or waste or ingratitude, his 
bounties who so munificently furnishes us with good 
of every sort. " For every creature of God is good, 
and nothing to be refused, if it be received with 
thanksgiving. For it is sanctified by the word of 
God and prayer :" that is, the authority of " the 
word of God " hath set it apart for our use, and 
" prayer" concurring receives his blessing with the 
gift ; and both constitute the appropriate " sancti- 
fying " of these donations to their legitimate end — 
the use of man. Hence we are not to invent crosses 
that we may carry them, as if they were divinely 
commanded ! especially to invent them for others ; 

74 



586 

and dogmatize them on mankind, proscribing or 
legitimating what we will — as if will was law! 
Others are as free as we are ; w r e as obligated 
to subjection as others. Legislation in such things 
belongs underived to the prerogative of the Great 
King of consciences ; and belongs to him alone. 
Besides, there are two other reasons against the 
usurpation of our legislating in the case : first, we 
never engage in making or doing such laws, without 
so neglecting, as practically to unmake and undo, 
the really obligatory laws of God : the commanded 
sacraments, for example ! The attention we give 
to uncommanded forms, always subduces propor- 
tionately from our obedience to what is commanded. 
Second, As it is wrong in principle for any man to 
popify himself as a lawgiver, in the church espe- 
cially, so, as Paul avers and as experience shows, it 
ought to be resisted in its beginnings and crushed 
in the quickening ; or it will increase, mature, and 
become at last a living monster of mischief and 
impiety- So prolific is the progeny of abuses, when 
allowed ; superseding Christianity as God gave it to 
us, in its completeness and adaptation, in his word. 
But the plainness of the society often operates as 
a salutary restraint. I question this altogether. 
Besides, restraint is not virtue. A tiger may be re- 
strained, till in effect he becomes as inoffensive as 
a lamb : but still he is a tiger. How much virtue 
is there in a restrained Quaker ] as much as there 
is of sanity in a maniac dressed in strait vesture. 
Such restraint is not salutary, except possibly for 
the repose of the community. It cramps the mind ; 



58? 

makes servile the temper ; irritates the feelings ; 
contradicts the wishes, without at all convincing the 
judgment or enlightening the conscience ; generates 
cowardice ; acts as a constant mentor of degrada- 
tion ; exposes its subjects to the cruelty and sport 
of the foolish, without at all commending them to 
the confidence of the wise ; and is calculated to 
foster self-deceit, contractedness of thought, latent 
malice, envy, and sly duplicity. I solemnly believe 
that Quakerism tends to degrade the human mind ; 
to strengthen its vulgar and low propensities, to 
alienate mental manhood and the honest love of 
moral evidence ; to inspire cant, religious whining, 
holy moping, artificial distortions of the counte- 
nance, perversion of doctrine, solemn vacuity, and 
even desperation, insanity, and suicide ! Of the 
insanity of its tendencies — I can only record that I 
have long believed it from actual observation. I 
could give names — a number — now at my com- 
mand and of my acquaintance, of Friends, who, 
under the influence of their most reasonless and 
proofless scheme of mysticism, have gone lunatic 
and died maniacs — some, and these their preachers, 
by self-violence. The reasons are, I think, mainly 
such as these : it stimulates the mind, when spiri- 
tually exercised, to the intensity of fanaticism ; puts 
it upon the quest of things impracticable ; deprives 
it of the strength and satisfaction of rational evi- 
dence ; shows it not at all, for it does not know, 

THE GLORIOUS DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH 

in Jesus Christ, or the scriptural way of war- 
ranted access to God ; fills it with a host of 



588 

morbid prejudices ; perverts its sober thought, and 
inspires a feeling that rational investigation is in- 
imical to spirituality and offensive to the grace of 
the Spirit ; destroys, as I believe, the proper and 
glorious use of scriptural and evangelical guidance, 
by telling them — and let no Friend deny this — that 
the scriptures are " a secondary rule !" and the 
Spirit speaking in them " the primary rule " in re- 
ligion ; yea, that the Spirit, i. e. God himself, is a 
rule of action, and infinitely the highest and best 
rule of action ! I speak as a witness and know that 
I speak truth — though well I know also how their 
serpentine sophistry will declaim, and throw dust in 
the air, to darken the vision of others ! The best 
restraint in the world is — pure Christianity. 

But one of their esoteric 64 " arguments is — that if 
they do not maintain the characteristic plainness of 
the society, they will lose cast and come to nothing ! 
Will they \ Well, I think this must be admitted. 
It is my own opinion. Hence we see the import- 
ance of "working out their own " Quakerism, with 
punctilious conformity; for, otherwise, they may 
stand a chance to find out the truth and get con- 
verted to Christianity ! But — I would tell them, 
1. That they will come to nothing, at all events, so 
far as Quakerism is concerned. They are now so 
much altered, from a thorough-going Quaker of the 
seventeenth century, that if the two kinds should 
coexist in Philadelphia next year, or even in Lon- 
don, they could not mutually endure each other. 
Which of them is sufficiently " faithful " in these 
days, to enter Christ church " steeple-house " in 



589 

that city and interdict the worship there, in the 
name of the Lord 1 I do not believe that if George 
Fox were to enter Arch-street meeting, in the city 
aforesaid, he would be either welcome or endured ; 
i. e. if he should be just what he formerly was. 
There is no persecution in this free and happy 
land, to elevate them into sectarian prosperity. 
Nor is any man more glad of this every way than 
myself. But mark my word, and remember it when 
I am in the other world — In this country of 

LIGHT AND CIVIL FREEDOM THEY WILL CONTINU- 
ALLY WANE, ASSIMILATE TO BETTER MODELS, AND 
ULTIMATELY COME TO NOTHING AS A SECT. 

Every generation will probably improve in men- 
tal freedom and the temper to examine. The 
circumambient light, made by reflections and re- 
fractions from the word of God, will compel them 
progressively to see things as they are. They 
will then begin to reason ; and I hope, to pray — 
without waiting profanely for a motion of their 
sluggish internal prompter. It will then be enough 
for them to know what is the will of God on the 
subject. And if they can possibly ascertain from 
his living oracles, by studious searching and a little 
common sense, that Jesus Christ once " spake 
a parable to this end, that men ought always to 
pray and not to faint," they may at last come 
to see that the invitation, the order, the pro- 
mise, of God, to prayer, constitute the identical 
all-sufficient warrant " to every one that be- 
lieveth." This will instantly break up the waiting 
system ; it will make their silent meetings seem to 



590 

them as empty and heathenish as they are ; and 
learning to follow the Spirit where he truly leads, 
they will obey the written word of inspiration, as 
their highest rule of action, and come experimen- 
tally to know, much better than Barclay ever did, 
the meaning of that grand aphorism which he mys- 
tically abuses — As many as are led by the 
Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Rom. 
8 : 14. Heb. 4 : 14-16. Many an old man pro- 
bably will hug his prejudices •'inwardly'' to the 
grave ; but his posterity may not always " approve 
his sayings." The signs of the times indicate the 
progress of things and their improvement too. 
Their educated young men will think and speak 
and influence others. Friends have altered since I 
can remember. They are shaken, the whole of 
them — except the mere mental and moral sediment 
of the society, the ignorant and the dull prover- 
bially. They begin to see that there is no sin in 
classical education and mental discipline ; that La- 
tin and Greek may be learned from good motives, 
and without contamination ; that there is more 
temptation in iguorance than in sound learning ; 
and that all correct knowledge may be acquired in 
subserviency to piety. Let real light advance. It 
never had such a fair field as in this land. God is 
the Great Patron of all true knowledge ; and Chris- 
tianity is a system of rational evidence, as well as 
of " grace and truth.*' 

I must add. 2. That they ought to repent of their 
sectarianism. It is a shame to any people, espe- 
cially in this age and in this unique and happy land ; 



591 

and especially as they have more of sect and less of 
Christianity. It is the very mind of anti-christ. 
And, Friends, allow me to ask, why will you labor, 
and metamorphose your humanity, and exhort or 
assist each other in upholding that excrescence of 
a darkling and troubled period, not half-reclaimed 
from the traditional popery of ages ; why will you toil 
to uphold a system which can never uphold you'? 
Let it alone ; give it up. Take the religion of Je- 
sus Christ just as he has given it to us, and made 
it for us, in the holy scriptures. Conform to it ; it 
is greater than you : and it will make you happy ; it 
will save you. This, my dear fellow creatures and 
friends, I know by experience. I have proved it ; 
I commend it to you. Will you not conform to 
Christianity \ Well ! take the consequences then ! 
This is all — and surely it is enough. There is no 
indecision in God. The alternative is before you. 
Christianity will never conform to you, not a jot or 
a tittle of it. Again, I say, it never willconfokm 
to you or to any man. Conform to it ; to the 
whole of it ; just as it is ; cordially ; confidentially ; 
constantly; and you will be saved long enough 
before you get to glory ! The salvation of Jesus 
Christ is a present salvation, as well as an eter- 
nal one. " He that hath the Son, hath life; and he 
that hath not the Son of God, hath not life." Rea- 
der, is this possession yours 1 Take care of your 
title. Many will be disappointed for the want of a 
good one. Nothing but truth is indisputable. 

This chapter shall conclude with the considera- 
tion of a passage, Col. 2 : 20-23, on which the so- 



592 

ciety are wont to lay much emphasis ; as they do, 
most tenaciously, on any and every one that seems, 
in their light, to vindicate their views : so that I think 
it a good inference that they would adhere as close- 
ly to the whole volume, if they only liked it all, as 
well and as much as they seem to like some spe- 
cial passages, which they misunderstand and plau- 
sibly pervert. This real reason, for the selectness 
and delicacy of their scriptural taste, may possibly 
not be known to themselves. It is not in money- 
getting or the principles of arithmetic, but in reli- 
gion pre-eminently, that "the heart is deceitful 
above all things and desperately wicked." 

Every one can see the use to which Friends put 
it- — to denounce the sacraments ; warn and encou- 
rage themselves in the holy disobedience of reject- 
ing them ; and fix on consistent worshippers the 
charge of judaizing and formality. And truly they 
can throw over their version of it a cloud of spe- 
ciosity in favor of their usages, as if it was written 
on purpose to sanction them. 

Intending now to attempt its disabuse from 
their glosses and their mistakes, their ignorance 
and their inspiration, by showing its proper mean- 
ing ; I observe, 

1. That the passage is comparatively of difficult 
solution. Often have I witnessed its mistaken use 
in the pulpit, in religious publications, and in the 
noble speeches even of senatorial eloquence, en- 
gaged in the cause of temperance and thundering 
in the capitol. On this account Friends ought to 
be treated with special lenience, just here, were it 



593 

not for their notorious inspiration when they preach ! 
Inspiration deserves no quarters ; needs none ; and 
were more injured by the offer than the want. Still, 
of mere grace I will award it to them — thinking it 
a good instance in illustration of the nature of grace, 
as favor to the ill-deserving ! for they always affect 
to know all about it, and all about every thing else 
almost, as inspiration might. 

2. Much of the darkness and mistake which ge- 
nerally accompanies the passage may be traced to 
a demonstrable infelicity of our translation. I will 
render it, as seems just and necessary, thus : " If 
then ye have died with Christ from the elements of 
the world, why, as those that live with the world, 
do you subject yourselves to the arbitrary enact- 
ments of men \ Thou shalt not eat, thou shalt not 
taste, thou shalt not handle ; which things are all 
corrupting by abuse ; according to human authority 
and inclination ; which things have indeed the ap- 
pearance of wisdom, by will-worship, and formal 
humiliation, and unsparing severity to the body, 
(though with no real profit) for the satisfaction of 
the flesh." That I have rendered the above per- 
fectly as it should be, I do not affirm ; but that the 
general sense is correctly given, I am confident. 
The learned reader may consult the original at his 
leisure. He may also ponder Dr. Macknight, Park- 
hurst, Robinson's Wahl, Schleusner and others, with 
advantage. The original is so densely written ; so 
idiomatically, in the free stylo of Paul ; that one 
may well confess in details its intrinsic difficulty, 
after all. 

75 



594 

To be inspired sometimes, would be vastly con- 
venient ; it would at least save many an honest 
student from the incessant toil and occasional head- 
ache of patient investigation. 

3. The passage, so far from favoring Friends, is 
entirely opposed to them. It forbids christians to 
allow any human authority to speak to them with 
its own dogmas. Soy ytat 'i£eade. It will not allow 
them to be Pythagoreans, bowing to mere authori- 
ty. It absolves them, as the subjects of Christ, from 
all the orders of men in religion. Col. 3 : 23-25. 
It respects " ordinances" such possibly as these; 
" Thou shalt use the plain language ; thou shalt 
wear clothes of a precisely given description ; thou 
shalt go to Friends' meetings only ; thou shalt vilify 
all other ministers as " hirelings," and not learn 
even the truth from them ; thou shalt believe, with- 
out any evidence, that there is, in thee and in all 
men, a certain inward Might, seed, life, principle, 
fountain, power, grace, and portion of the divinity,' 
which is ' above all ' and < hath dominion over all,' 
by attending to the voice of which, thou mayest 
come to the full knowledge of salvation." Those 
obey it who refuse utterly to be " subject to ordi- 
nances " such as the above ; and who continue to 
deny all the fleshly wisdom and presumptuous le- 
gislation of creatures in the church, of which Je- 
sus Christ alone is the all-sufficient head. 

4. Suppose for a moment it did refer to " the or- 
dinances " of baptism and the Lord's Supper, (1 
Cor. 11 : 2,) I beg leave to observe, doubt it who 
may, and I shall only observe, that then the scrip- 



595 

tures would contradict themselves flatly and de- 
monstrably — a consequence which in point of fact 
(not of words) seems to affect Friends very little. 
5. The passage refers, from the previous context, 
it is thought, to all the desired innovations of heathen 
schoolmen and Jewish corrupters ; while its princi- 
ple is of universal application, exalting the authority 
of Jesus Christ alone and exclusively in the church 
" which he purchased with his own blood." It will 
not admit the philosophy of Pythagoras or Plato 
to domineer ; or the enactments of Jewish impos- 
tors to deform. It allows no distinction of meats ; 
it favors no will-worship, no maceration of the body, 
no strait vesture of religious singularity or clanship, 
no self-inflicted austerities, no profitless and me- 
chanical observance. It pronounces all these to be 
human fabrications, fleshly wisdom, injurious, and 
tending to destruction in many ways. It will be per- 
ceived too that the inhibitory clause, rendered in 
our translation, " Touch not, taste not, handle not," 
is not plural, as if the apostle commanded it ; is it- 
self no integral part of the inspired scriptures, but 
a mere quotation by the apostle of a judaical man- 
date for the purpose of annulling it ; and that it is 
often improperly used in the cause of tempe- 
rance — a cause too glorious and too affluent in 
resources to need any perversion for its assistance, 
since perversion alone sustains the arguments that 
oppose it. It is a cause too, I am happy to add, in 
which Friends have been nearly right from the be- 
ginning ; and in which their example, taking prece- 
dency of others, has been comparatively excellent 



596 

and of praiseworthy consistency. Still, it is not a 
perfect example in several respects. Xone of their 
members are allowed to vend the intoxicating poi- 
son — in small quantities ! But some of them i; feel 
easy,'' or uneasy, while they trade in it by wholesale! 
And why, knowing this, in a yearly meeting, full 
of inspiration and other wonderful qualities, do they 
every year groan over the matter, or squint at it, 
with a half resolved menace of action, and then do — 
nothing ! Is it that in such an assemblage " there is 
not strength enough in the body'- to act in that busi- 
ness ! or will they always adjourn it till next year ! 
Or, is it better "to get still,*' and hold silent meet- 
ings only, on that subject ! reaching it galvanically 
or otherwise, " without words V 

On the sacraments, Barclay has written nearly 80 
octavo pages. To follow him, especially in his pa- 
rade of sanctions from the word of God by refer- 
ences that are all against him, would be vexatious 
and useless. I only aver that I have stated the 
strongest of his seeming arguments that I can 
rind — thou £f h I solemnly believe, and for reasons 
already given, that his whole dissertation on the 
subject is a tissue of sophistry, a flying from the 
point, a mystification of evidence, and a disingenu- 
ousness of procedure throughout ! It oftentimes 
induces the indignation that would — almost — de- 
nounce him as a wanton perverter and libeller of 
the truth ! I boldly write my thoughts, just as they 
are ; and know that I must answer for it to God. It 
is out of my power to think that he was not a wil- 
ful sophist or a deluded errorist. considered as a 



597 

religious teacher. In no other aspect would I dis- 
pose of him. As one of my relations is that of a wit- 
ness, I record it for those whom it may concern that 
what he writes induces in my mind only a deeper 
sense of his perversion, and of the anti-evangelical 
and even infidel tendencies of Quakerism ! I believe 
Hicksism belongs to its substance, and is one of its 
common and proper fruits. Let men scout it, if they 
will ; let them treat it as empty assertion, after all the 
scriptural decision of the Holy Ghost that has been 
adduced, and that the genius of Quakerism syste- 
matically neglects or instinctively disguises ; still, it 
shall be recorded — I am sincere too — that the whole 
scheme, here and elsewhere, is " another gospel ;" 
is homogeneously hostile to the doctrine of justifi- 
cation, of atonement, of salvation by faith, and of 
eternal and manifest perdition as the sure result of 
obeying not the gospel : and these are the funda- 
mentals of Christianity, which the Bible continually 
brings into view ; which Quakerism continually 
puts out of view ; which it is the policy of hell for- 
ever to supersede and obscure ; and equally the 
duty of the church and the ministry to maintain, pure 
and inviolate. " Ephraim compasseth me about with 
lies. — I have written to him the great things of 
my law, but they were counted as a strange thing. — 
Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall 
bear no fruit. — Ephraim also is like a silly dove, 
without heart. — They return, but not to the Most 
High : they are like a deceitful bow : their princes 
shall fall by the sword for the rage of their tongue. 
This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt. 



593 

They call to Egypt, they go to Assyria. When they 
shall go, I will spread my net upon them ; I will 
bring them down as the fowls of the heaven ; I will 
chastise them, as their congregation hath heard. 
Wo unto them ! for they have fled from me : de- 
struction unto them ! because they have transgressed 
against me : though i have REDEEMED them, 

YET THEY HATE SPOKEX LIES AGAIXST ME. 1 Will go 

and return to my place, till they acknowledge their 
offence, and seek my face : in their affliction they 
will seek me earlv." 



599 



VHB CHRISTIAN MXHrXSTM'. 

The infidel has shot his bolts away, 

Till, his exhausted quiver yielding none, 

He gleans the blunted shafts that have recoiled, 

And aims them at the shield of Truth again. 

****** 

The world takes little thought. Who will may preach, 

And what they will. All pastors are alike 

To wandering sheep, resolved to follow none. Cow per. 

How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring 
glad tidings of good things. 

So then, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. — Rom , 
10: 15-17. 

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power 
may be of God, and not of us.— 2 Cor. 4 : 1-7. 

My words shall be of the uprightness of my heart : and my lips shall utter 
knowledge clearly. The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the 
Almighty hath given me life. If thou canst answer me, set thy words in order 
before me, stand up. Behold, I am according to thy wish in God's stead : I also 
am formed out of the clay. Behold, my terror shall not make thee afraid, nei- 
ther shall my hand be heavy upon thee. — Job, 33 : 3-7. 

Let a man so account, of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the 
mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be found 
faithful.— 1 Cor. 4 : 1-5. 

And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the 
same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others 
also !— 2 Tim. 2 : 2. 

Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by 
us : we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. — 2 Cor. 5 : 20. 

If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God. — 1 Pet. 4 : 11. 

That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about 
with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, 
whereby they lie in wait to deceive: but speaking the truth in love, may grow 
up into him in all things, who is the head, even Christ.— Eph. 4 : 14, 15. 

As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over 
them. O my people, they who lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way 
of thy paths. — Isai. 3 : 12. 

On the subject of the christian ministry, Friends 
are very peculiar in mauy respects, and wrong in 



600 

about as many. The theme is inviting, fertile, and 
important ; but it is so well understood compara- 
tively in this country, that I thought at first wholly 
to omit its treatment. Its connection with Quak- 
erism, however, has determined me to the present 
course ; in which I shall attempt little more than to 
expose the anti-scriptural perversion of their scheme : 
and this generally as it respects the nature of the 
office ; its importance as a means of grace ; a 
competent temporal support ; the right of females 
to officiate ; and the probable salvation of their pre- 
sent and proper ministrations. Their views and 
usages here are so well known, as not to require 
many quotations from their authors : indeed the 
way to put down error is to establish truth ; and 
not to waste time and strength in chasing a serpent 
through all the windings of his flexile and lubri- 
cated path. Speaking however as a christian wit- 
ness, and knowing my account in the eternal world, 
I record my hearty protest against their peculiar 
views ; as false, specious, purely fanatical, and 
eminently ruinous to those whom they avail to in- 
fluence ! 

I. The nature of the 3iixistereal office oc- 
curs to be considered. Its nature as God has made 
it, and as the scriptures evince it, I mean ; and not 
as it has been abused by anybody : its nature, as 
involving distinctness of office ; life-devotement to 
its service ; constancy and regularity of officiating; 
a genuine call to its duties ; the commission of its 
authority ; the sanctions of its administration ; its 
perpetuity in the world. I shall not think it neces- 



601 

sary distinctly and in form to treat of all these ; nor 
to care specially for the order announced. 

1. The distinctness of the ministerial office, re- 
sults from the nature of its duties ; their sacred im- 
portance ; the necessity of adequate qualifications ; 
the inhibition of the incompetent ; the duty of the 
church to try, and prove, and recognise, the com- 
petent; and the whole tenor of scripture, speak- 
ing of the order and the office, its appropriate duties 
and solemn responsibilities, in a style suited to no 
other idea. What Barclay says about the distinc- 
tion between the clergy and the laity, is little other 
than religious trifling and logomachy. If the order 
exists distinctly, then every one belongs to it, or — 
he does not. In this there is nothing disparaging 
or invidious, especially in our times. The latter 
class are called, by secular usage and common law, 
the laity, or people ; and the former, the clergy, or 
the order of clerks or scholars ; for reasons which 
history has told to all men. 

2. The ministerial commission. In general, this is 
the whole written word of God; in particular, those 
passages that condense the authority and the in- 
structions of the service, in few and comprehensive 
and appropriate words ; and that declare the salva- 
tion or the damnation of men, the savor either "of 
death unto death" or " of life unto life," according 
to their treatment of the gospel ; and these as the 
sanctions of God, to those to whom their ministra- 
tions are addressed. Thus, the whole volume is 
declared to be inspired eminently to this end, the 
accomplishing of the ministry; "that the man of 

76 



602 

God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto ail 
good works." Hence every preacher is required to 
conform his doctrine to that ' outward ' rule ; " If 
any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of 
God." He is required also to observe coherency, 
and the essential harmony of truth, and the analogy 
of faith in its proper outline, in all that he delivers ; 
" Let us prophecy according to the proportion (ob- 
jective symmetry or analogy) of faith." " And lo, 

1 am with you alway, even unto the end of the 
world," says the Savior : a sentence sufficient of 
itself to show the perpetuity of the office to the end 
of time ; did not the spiritual wants of men, the 
same in all ages and in constant succession of ge- 
nerations, and the evident seal of the Spirit on a 
pure ministry in our own day ; the experience of 
all genuine and accomplished christians ; the his- 
tory of those countries where such a ministry is en- 
joyed, in contrast with others that perishingly want 
that excellent ascension-gift of Christ ; perfectly 
demonstrate the truth. The right and the duty and 
the responsibility of private judgment, however, is 
fully given in the scriptures : and there is it better 
guarded too than it can be possibly elsewhere. 

2 Cor. 1 : 24. Acts, 17 : 11. 1 John, 4 : 1-5. John, 
5 : 31-47. No protestant and no christian can pro- 
bably over-estimate the importance of this right or 
the solemnity of this duty. To God we answer for 
its abuse. Liberty and responsibility ought always 
to accompany and mutually to qualify each other. 
Men are free — and they are accountable too! No 
claim of inspiration entitles a man, or a woman, to 



603 

be believed implicitly. " To the law and to the 
testimony : if they speak not according to this word, 
it is because there is no light in them." " Consider 
what I say ; and the Lord give thee understanding 
in all things. " 

The commission of Friends where is it 1 

In the inner man ! in the anointing felt at the time ! 
in " the fund of the soul !" in light ! 

3. A minister of the gospel must be devoted with 
his all and for life to the service. The very nature, 
magnitude, difficulty, glory, of the work, demon- 
strate this. To what ought a man to be devoted for 
life ; with all his powers absorbed, all his affections 
enamored, all his time employed, if not to this in- 
comparable service 1 I will quote only one passage 
here. It is addressed to a young minister, and 
through him as well to every other minister of 
Christ. " Give attendance to reading, to ex- 
hortation, to doctrine. Neglect not the gift 
that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, 
with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. 
Meditate upon these things ; GIVE THY- 
SELF WHOLLY TO THEM; THAT THY 
PROFITING MAY APPEAR TO ALL :" or, 
" IN ALL," as is the original, with manifest pre- 
ferableness ; meaning, in all the branches and 
parts of the comprehensive office-work. From 
innumerable other testimonies of the " secondary 
rule," might the same be verified. But this is plain, 
full, indisputable. I only ask, What Quaker minis- 
ter obeys it I The man who gives no " attendance 
to reading 1" who abhors religious study 1 who de- 



604 

nounces theological application, as a profane way 
of preparing for public duty ! who is a layman, 
while he preaches ! and who. instead of " giving 
himself wholly*' to the things of the ministry, 
drives a prosperous trade all the week, and now 
and then on " first-day" delivers a rhapsody of in- 
spired nonsense, to an edified assemblage, for ten 
or twelve minutes, or possibly only two sentences 
in three or ten months^ The difference between a 
minister of the New Testament stamp, and an or- 
dinary Quaker holder-forth, is so great and palpa- 
ble, that to one who knows the appropriate charac- 
teristics of both, the attempt to prove it were su- 
perfluous and to illustrate it ridiculous. Some of 
the most ignorant simpletons in civilized society 
get inspired to preach among them ; and " shear 
nonsense '* indeed do they deliver : while tremulous 
gesticulation, groaning, drawling, whining, grimace, 
and most unearthlv tunes of vocal sinsr-sonar. are 

OS 7 

the relief, and the accompaniment, and the com- 
pensation. I might here record some recollected 
specimens in point — but I forbear, with pity super- 
seding the indignation it produces ! Do they so 
obey the order of God, that their " profiting,'* 
their proficiency, -'appears V and that, "in all" the 
varied and lofty ramifications of the ministerial 
office ! in interpretation, in knowledge, in doctrinal 
discrimination, in lucid developement, in richness of 
furniture, and so on ! " Take heed unto thyself and 
to the doctrine ; continue in them : for in doing 
this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear 
thee.'* Is this like their ministry; masculine or 



605 

feminine t " Jesus saith unto them, Have ye un- 
derstood all these things 1 They say unto him, 
Yea, Lord. Then said he unto them, Therefore 
every scribe who is instructed unto the kingdom 
of heaven, is like unto a man that is an householder, 
who bringeth forth out of his treasure things new 
and old." Matth. 13 : 52. "And the Lord said, 
Who then is that faithful and wise steward, 
whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, 
to give them their portion of meat in due season 1 
Blessed is that servant whom his lord when he 
cometh shall find so doing." Luke, 12 : 42, 43. 
There is no such ministry among Friends, no- 
thing like it in all the estate of their officers ; 
elders or ministers ; male or female. Some of 
their preachers, I speak of the best that I ever 
heard, have indeed a native vain of eloquence, 
and mental gifts of no ordinary respectability : still, 
their sermons are without method, concentration, or 
point. They show pathos and poetry of a certain 
kind ; but equally evince the folly that abhors men- 
tal discipline in preaching ; that calls it " forbidden 
fruit" (what a foolery) to premeditate and mature 
their message ; and that sincerely acts as if the 
Deity were just using their organs of utterance for 
his own speech, while they piously suffer it to " go 
through" them. Their edification, I deliberately 
believe, is mainly physical ; as much so as social 
sympathy, theatrical effect, pantomime, good ani- 
mal spirits, nervous excitement, a solemn nap, " re- 
newing one's strength" by tranquil inaction, se- 
rene feeling, or electrical saturation ! See Barclay's 



606 

physical analysis of " worship," in which he soberly 
proves its contagiousness, or that the inference is 
catching in their society! I often think of a charged 
battery of Leyden phials and a secret conductor, 
when I read hirn. To mysticise below the bathos or 
the abyss of all comprehension, wonderfully re- 
freshes them. They are very fond of figurative rea- 
soning and analogical illustration, incoherent and 
declamatory. In fact there is no particular need 
of their proving any thing. Inspiration " dwells 
like Uriel in the sun ;" and must be right. They 
have no " Evangelists, or Pastors and Teachers," 
after the pattern of the New Testament. Their 
preachers often produce a great effect — on the 
nerves ! Their incantations or cantillations are so- 
norous and affecting quite. But it is very much a 
physical effect, instead of a moral one : and their 
sages know little of the difference. To explain, 
demonstrate, define, instruct, and edify, in the pure 
faith of the gospel, is what the best of them do not. 
The scriptures they never read in public worship. 
Their quotations are loose, disjointed, and almost 
all by common plagiarism from their books or their 
cotemporaries or recent predecessors — yet they vend 
it all for fresh inspiration, very sincerely. My own 
conviction is, after a full and perilous experience of 
their ways, that their ministry is altogether another 
sort of thing from that described in the New Tes- 
tament ; and that ordinarily a man might sit under 
it for half a century, and get all the good it was 
adapted to afford, and be mightily affected on every 
occasion, and considerably restrained and softened 



607 

and attenuated in his living practice ; without ever 
coming to know the way of salvation through Jesus 
Christ as it is, and without all the proper ends rea- 
lized to his soul for which the evangelical ministry 
was divinely and certainly appointed. Not only does 
their influence omit to demonstrate — since it knows 
not — the real vitals of the gospel as they are; it so 
blunts the edge of thought, mystifies the judgment, 
and pre-occupies the perceptions, that the devotee 
or disciple of their ways now spontaneously calls 
good, evil ; bitter, sweet : and light, darkness. At- 
tempt to reason the case — ah ! that is all in the will 
of man, in the wisdom of the schools, in the way of 
divines and doctors. Thus they are attached to the 
system as it were by infection communicated, or the 
virtus inoculated into the constitution : as Barclay 
says, " it must be rather by a sensible [not spiritual] 
experience, and by coming to make proof of it, than 
by arguments," that we are " convinced " of the 
excellence of their style of things. The senses, in- 
ternal or external, have often a greater effect in con- 
vincing some persons, than evidence, even if it be 
the w T ord of God ! " Yea, and we doubt not, but 
assuredly know, that the meeting may be good and 
refreshful, though from the sitting down to the ris- 
ing up thereof, there hath not been a word as out- 
wardly spoken ; and yet life may have been known 
to abound in each particular, and an inward grow- 
ing up therein and thereby." He speaks of such an 
encounter in these silent meetings, " that often- 
times, through the working thereof, the body will 
be greatly shaken, and many groans, and sighs, 



-05 

:s n as the nags rf a woman jn travail, 
will lay hold upon it-*' Hence, he sa; s. Out work 
then and worthy :s. when we meet together, for 
eveiy one to watch and wait upon God in them- 
selves, and to be gathered & from all risibles there- 
unto." And then it is that " the good seed, as it 
5th, will be fonnd to work as physic n the soul." 
Thr.s Barclay himself was physically converted to 
Uiakerism — precisely as I was not converted from 
;: Christianity: " not by strength of arguments. 
y a partici: ik :; aisirion of each doctrine, and 
c : .-vincement of my understanding thereby." N : 
so : ** bnt by being secretly reached by this life" 
Be adds, as a tree and graphic auto-biographer; 
: r when I came into the silent assemblies of God's 
people. I felt a secret power among them, which 
touched my heart, and as I gave way unto it, I 
fonnd the evil weakening in me. and the good 
ed up, and so I became thus knit and united 
o them, hungering more and more after the in- 
crease of this power and life, whereby I might feel 
myself perfectly redeemed. — And indeed this is the 

way to become a christian, 99 but enou^ 

or, I will just add. this is :he method of their admi- 
lis ered ordinances! for "thus we are often greatly 
riigthened and renewed in the spirits of our 
minds without a word, and we enjoy and possess 
the holy fellowship and communion of the body and 
Mood of Ch — h our inward man is non- 

id and fed; which makes us not to dote upon 
outward water, and bread, and wine, in our spiri- 
tual things. 9 * They only dote upon inward water. 



609 

and bread and wine. But the christian ministry 
requires, 

4. Constancy and regularity of officiating : this, 
ordinarily ; as well as all the extraordinary and in- 
opportune and nameless ways in which one is re- 
quired, seeking and watching all proper occasions 
to exert a wise but an aggressive and positive influ- 
ence in favor of the gospel. It is plainly the duty 
of every preacher of the gospel to honor the fol- 
lowing order of the Holy Ghost : " I charge thee 
therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, 
who shall judge the quick and the dead at his ap- 
pearing and his kingdom ; preach the word ; be in- 
stant in season, out of season ; reprove, rebuke, ex- 
hort, with all long-suffering and doctrine," &c. 
2 Tim. 4 : 1-4. Does this mean — keep silent 
meetings, that the spirits of the people may be 
" renewed without a word," by a secret influence, 
galvanic, atmospheric, or physical of some other 
sort 1 Friends often allege the importance of re- 
flection, and the value of silent meetings as assist- 
ing it. But is this wise 1 Why come together so- 
cially, for the sake of solitary thought 1 We are 
indeed exhorted to " commune with our own heart 
and be still ;" but then it is " on our bed," and not 
" in the great congregation." Such duties are pri- 
vate and personal in their nature, and ought to be 
done in the "closet." But public meetings are 
social ; and fit, as they were instituted by the great 
Head of the church, for public actions of worship ; 
such as preaching, prayer, singing, reading the 
scriptures, and the administration of the christian 

77 



610 

sacraments. To come together into one place— to 
sit still, to reflect, to be mute, to hear no preaching 
of the word, and to celebrate no evangelical or- 
dinance ; this is — Quakerism. Acts, 13 : 38-44. 
Matt. 13:3. "Be instant," i. e. urgent, aggressive, 
" compelling them to come in :" Luke, 14 : 23, does 
this mean — that the preacher should wait for inspi- 
ration, an inward motion of life in the soul, by silent 
stillness, till " the rest will find themselves secretly 
smitten without words, and that one will be as a 
midwife through the secret travails of his soul to 
bring forth the life in them, just as a little water 
thrown into a pump brings up the rest, whereby life 
will come to be raised in all, — and such a one is 
felt by the rest to minister life unto them without 
words !" What competent and impartial judge can 
think this to be other than sorcery, peculiarly refin- 
ed X It is no more the gospel than the fooleries of 
the Koran are ! " In season :" does this mean that 
it is wrong to have regular seasons of preaching 
the word 1 that to appoint such seasons and punc- 
tually to meet them, is all " in the will of man " 
and abominable to God I " Out of season ;" does 
this mean — only when you have been sitting still 
for a length of time, to get the life into play and 
pulsation \ only when you can feel yourself " cloth- 
ed " with the living influence 1 only when you can 
take out a new commission, like bread hot from 
the oven 1 only when your nerves and your imagi- 
nation have become charged with the light of 
Quakerism, the foxian touchwood or flame of an 



611 

ultra-spiritual vision 1 Quakerism, whatever else 
it may be, is not Christianity. 

5. A genuine call to the duties of the ministerial 
office, is one thing with Quakerism, and another 
thing with the religion of the New Testament. It 
was in the " openings " of a marvellous inspiration 
that George Fox was first called from the last, to 
preach about the light. In just such a way only, 
do Friends allow any other preacher to be desig- 
nated. All that are not called in this way of theirs, 
are man-made preachers, and " divested of the no- 
ble name of christian" 

On this subject, after I had obtained a hope in 
Christ Jesus, and felt "joy and peace in believing," 
according to the glorious written gospel of God, I 
was perplexed for a time with the recurrence of the 
old leaven, the secret influence, which they think 
the very artery of spiritual life, thrilling with its 
freshest circulations. The word of God was my 
universal solvent, my panacea, my philosopher's 
stone, my elixir of life ! I was "thoroughly fur- 
nished " by its wisdom. There I soon saw that the 
way of fanatical imposture was that which troubled 
me, and quite another way that indicated in the ge- 
nuine oracles. To be possessed of the proper 
qualifications — this was the criterion, according 
to that volume of " truth and soberness :" and this 
question was to be judged for myself and by my- 
self in the first instance, and then for others by my 
spiritual superiors in the church of God. I resolved 
these qualifications into the following ; (1) sincere 
piety, as a lover of God and a disciple of Jesus 



612 

Christ ; (2) a desire of the office, enlightened, prac- 
tical, predominating, hearty, and in a sense inextin- 
guishably strong ; (3) competent intellectual talents, 
natural and acquired ; (4) suitable bodily powers, 
as health, vigor, voice ; (5) a willingness to submit 
to authority, and to honor the proper power of go- 
vernment in the church, by being subject to it for 
Christ's sake, as well as by exercising it on the 
same account ; and (6) the sanction of the church of 
God, on due experiment as a probationer. These 
I approved as constituting the qualifications, from 
which the inference is valid that he who possesses 
them is ordinarily called of God to the work of the 
ministry. (Extraordinary calls, such as that of Paul, 
are never to be looked for, and are now never repeat- 
ed. Hence on the matter of qualifications the 
burden of the New Testament pervadingly reposes. 
As soon as we hear of "desiring the office," it is 
pronounced " a good work ;" and the qualifications 
are specified that authorize incumbency and inves- 
titure. The candidate must look to these solemnly, 
for his own satisfaction ; then must the church and 
all men, for their satisfaction. 1 Tim. 3 : 1-7. Tit. 
1 : 5-11. 2 Tim. 2 : 1-26. 3 : 1-17. 4 : 1-8. Now 
nothing is plainer to me than this — that no Friend 
either does or can possess the requisite qualifica- 
tions ; and consequently no Friend, as such, is called 
of God, or has any right to be owned by man, as a 
minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Is a Friend, 
for example, " apt to teach " or to— sit still l does 
he give himself " wholly " to his work 1 or only 
partially, fitfully, and as his more absorbing secular 



613 

profession permits 1 Is he seen " holding fast the 
faithful word as he hath been taught, that he 

MAY BE ABLE BY SOUND DOCTRINE BOTH TO EXHORT 
AND TO CONVINCE THE GAINSAYERs]" Does he 

" give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to 
doctrine]" Has he any official "gift," with "the 
laying on of the hands of the Presbytery 1" Does 
he even profess to act or officiate under the high 
commission of the volume of inspiration, which, its 
author declares, was written on purpose and mainly 
to equip and accomplish the christian ministry] 
Let men of sense, unprejudiced and independent, 
answer the questions. 

II. On the importance of the office as a 
means of grace, I have little to say. Brevity will 
suffice. I think the word of God very clearly au- 
thorizes this declaration, that, extraordinaries 
apart, the christian ministry, possessing the 
competent qualifications, is indispensable to 
salvation. All history and observation confirm the 
whole tenor of scripture in these two positions ; 
1. That man is an apostate and desperately wicked 
creature universally ; 2. That God ordinarily uses 
the ministry of the gospel, as his way of bringing 
sinners to exercise " repentance toward God and 
faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." 

This view is the antipodes of what " Friends be- 
lieve." And truly, when they value the ministry as 
of very little worth, I grant that their estimate is 
wise and rational — if they mean their own ! It is of 
very little worth, sure enough ! They could get to 
heaven by the light within, just as soon, or sooner, 



614 

without as with it. And, say they, when they hear 
our view, "what will become of the heathen I" An- 
swer, they are all to be converted by Friends' mis- 
sionary efforts — or saved by the light in every one of 
them ! I also will ask them a question ; What is to 
become of "the whole world" that "lieth in wick- 
edness ?" What will become of some worse hea- 
then at home, who need to be taught " which be the 
first principles of the doctrine of Christ V See 
Rom. 10 : 11-17, where we are told not only of the 
efficacy of faith, and of its indispensableness, but 
of the mode of its occurrence. " So then, faith 
cometh by hearing, and hearing by the [spoken] 
word of God." The gloss of Barclay on the con- 
text I pronounce false and contemptible. Paul is 
introducing no objector ; in that lucid chain of in- 
terrogatories, which leads to the conclusion I have 
cited. He is only preparing the way to show, vs. 
18-21, that salvation does not follow without faith, 
even where the gospel is enjoyed. 1 Cor. 1 : 18-31. 
Rom. 10 : 20-22. Luke, 10 : 1, 2. Rom. 1 : 20-32. 
2 : 1-12-16. But I proceed, 

III. To consider the topic of a competent tempo- 
ral support, as the due of the ministry according to 
human and divine laws equally. If the work is one 
that engrosses the "laborer;" that requires self-de- 
votement for life ; that absorbs most properly all 
his time and talents ; that occupies him wholly for 
the good of others : — why ought he to be starved to 
death for conformity to the divine requisitions 1 
Tell me not of abuses — I am treating of uses only ; 
besides, from abuse to disuse, of a good thing, is a 



615 

fooPs argument. A worldly establishment, a sordid 
money-making traffic in benefices, the abominations 
of simony, the sin of pluralities, the distraint and 
the modern doctrine of tithes, a secular enforce- 
ment of " church rates," or an implication against 
the fundamental principle that "the kingdom of 
Christ is not of this world ;" none of these is in the 
argument or need be in the objection. " But sup- 
pose one loves the wages more than the work?" 
Why — then he is an " hireling ;" and dying so, 
he will be lost forever ! But are there none of your 
own clergy in that predicament I Very probably. Are 
there none of your own laity in the same condemna- 
tion l Know ye not that if a man practise physic and 
love the wages supremely, " mammon," and not "the 
Father," is his God ; and "wrath abideth on him?" 
Friends often argue as if the sacred service was the 
only one in which it were sin to prefer emolument 
to higher considerations ; or in which there was any 
temptation to covetousness. I pray they may not 
wait for the e outward ' light of eternity to teach 
them, that, in whatever profession or sphere a man 
may be placed, he is obligated to love God supreme- 
ly ; and has no piety without doing it ; and is " an idol- 
ater," and so with " no inheritance in the kingdom 
of Christ and of God," if he be " a covetous man." 
Now, why cannot a man from motives as pure as 
those of Paul, accept a competent income from the 
congregation he serves — without loving it or valuing 
it inordinately at all 1 A physician ought to be as 
really benevolent as a minister of the gospel. He 
ought to love his patient, seek his good in the ex- 



616 

ercise of a pure and a divine benevolence ; and he 
ought to be paid for his services ! And suppose this 
is the case, in reference to many of that noble and 
godlike calling ; as I believe it is ; for I have the hap- 
piness to know certain members of the profession 
whose real piety and whose unobtrusive self-deny- 
ing beneficence, will receive, I think, a gracious 
and a glorious premium at " the resurrection of the 
just:" now, in reference to such, how reasonable 
would it be to call them " hirelings !" to say they 
ought "to work for nothing and find themselves !" 
to vilify their motives as pre-eminently base, be- 
cause they receive for their services, (not for their 
benevolent feelings,) a proper compensation ! or to 
object to such that the business is often abused ; 
and that knaves and quacks and false pretenders 
in abundance impose upon the public most feloni- 
ously ! The doctrine of motives, however, is not 
more cardinal here than every where ! it is applica- 
ble alike to every man in the world ! Is it in the 
ministry, or the learned professions, alone, that 
"hirelings" are to be founds or is it no sin out 
of the sacred office, and in the common callings 
of life] 

Friends indeed ought in justice to receive no sup- 
port under the law of Christ's house, that they 
" who preach the gospel should live of the gospel :" 
for, first, the amount of service they render plainly 
and equitably deserves, in ordinary, no compensa- 
tion. They are not devoted " wholly " or devoted 
at all, in their occasional and incoherent speakings ; 
nor can they be ! inspiration is too unmanageable 



617 

and Uncertain, as well as too dignified ! Second, 
They ought not to receive any compensation, be- 
cause THEY DO NOT " PREACH THE GOSPEL." They 

do not even preach! They only jump up and 
let the Spirit use their devoted organs, now and 
then, to convey a fresh message to a meeting, other- 
wise " silent," and dreaming possibly more at ran- 
dom. Besides, the matter conveyed is — Quakerism 
and not the gospel ! But, we will change the aspect 
of the subject. 

1. It is a fact that Friends sometimes, on a tra- 
velling expedition in behalf of the light, do prac- 
tically RECOGNISE ALMOST THE IDENTICAL PRINCI- 
PLE for which we contend ! and that not merely 
when a " sincere " foreigner (I particularly respect 
the individual to whom I refer) goes from America 
to Europe, and even to the presence of the northern 
Czar, (Alexander,) to diffuse the light, or to blow 
on the almost expiring flame " within " somebody ; 
or when a public Friendess gets an oracular im- 
pulse to go to London (never to Shiraz or Constan- 
tinople) on such lucid errand, whether her husband 
and her nursery cares permit it or not ; but even on 
a tour of domestic missionary crusading, such as 
occasionally occurs, as a work very like supereroga- 
tion ; there is a bill of traveling expenses and so 
forth, sometimes pretty large, to be "silently" de- 
frayed by the society ! There are other icays too, 
(some of which I know,) of doing the thing, that 
better save appearances ! 

2. It is strange that Friends do not carry out 
their principles more thoroughly and impartially ! 

78 



613 

If it is wrong to be a "hireling" or '-a priest," 

and to perform their services, is it not wrong to be 
partakers with them too ! Hear the order of God ; 
" neither be partaker of other men's sins : keep 
thyself pure." How guilty then are the whole so- 
ciety in many respects ! for example, on supposition 
that they read their English Bible as much as they 
would have us all infer! for who made that Bible? 
Alas ! it was notoriously made by learned Priests, 
Hirelings, Bishops, Professors, and others, from the 
universities of Oxford and Cambridge ; and at the 
orders of a warlike worldly king, called, profanely 
enough, Defender of the faith, Plead of the church, 
(fee. &c. The convention of translators [54 of them] 
did it all " in the will of man," were paid hand- 
somely for doing it, and never pretended to be 
helped by " inward light," which was then at least 
one-third of a century earlier than the epoch of its 
foxian radiations. Xow, to say nothing of the ser- 
mons, hymns, and other devout publications that 
they sometimes read and teach their children, and 
which were all made by notorious Priests, Hirelings, 
Bishops, Doctors, and such like, is it right for 
Friends to encourage that Bible \ I leave the so- 
lemn casuistry with their conscience ; only remind- 
ing them of the lad origin it had ! almost as bad as 
you to one person ! 

3. I would ask Friends especially in the city of 
Philadelphia, to consider at their leisure the history 
of many of their insjjirati since the commence- 
ment of the present century ! those that have been 
rather distinguished preachers and more distinguish- 



619 

ed merchants — in different departments of trade ! 
Are there none to prove that, even with their saga- 
city in business, seculars and sacreds do ill agree 
when mixed in a profession 1 — that confidence ob- 
tained and money loaned on the capital of affluent 
* inward light/ and a consequent splash in busi- 
ness, has often terminated in a subsequent crash of 
bankruptcy, and " dealings," and even " disown- 
ment 1" that particular favor and enlargement " in 
the gallery," though it may show the extraordinary 
illuminism of the preacher, is not equally a qualifi- 
cation for merchandizing to ultimate advantage 1 
and that when Friends in " easy circumstances," 
have been found willing specially to aid a " public 
Friend " in his commercial enterprizes, they have 
sometimes hazarded their funds upon an endorse- 
ment that neither heaven nor earth would make 
good to them 1 In the church of which it is my 
honor and pleasure to be a member and a servant, 
the reason assigned canonically of a competent 
maintenance, for a located and wholly devoted pas- 
tor, is that " he may be free from worldly cares and 
avocations ;" while entirely occupied in a holy 
and laborious " work," the weight of which might 
well crush the shoulders of an angel, without the 
accompanying and all-sufficient grace of " the Lord 
God omnipotent !" 

But did not Christ himself say, " Freely ye have 
received ; freely give." How is this to be recon- 
ciled with the common positions of the clergy 1 I 
answer, 

1. Not by interpreting it to contradict other 



m 

things that he said ; and especially as if it were 
designed to nullity the certain law of his house, in 
many places laid down and most incontestably de- 
monstrated ; as shall be amply shown hereafter. 

2, The sentence occurs onct only in the New 
Testament; and that under circumstances quite 
peculiar and extraordinary. Matt. 10 : 3. See from 
verse 7 to 15. How much oftener is it found in the 
writings and preachings of Friends — who like no 
other verse of the nine as well as that, which en- 
ables them so piously to denounce the clergy \ I 
would however inform them ot one other verse or 
sentence there contained, which they may find it 
very mysterious or dirhcult to comprehend. 

3. Jesus also said, verse 10, " for the workman 
is worthy of his meat ;" as elsewhere.. Luke.. 10 : 7. 
•• for the laborer is worthy of his hire." Xow ob- 
serve, unless a -moral inability should disqualify as 
it cannot exonerate the reader, the argument of 
the Redeemer : he lays down a universal law that 
service should be compensated ; and he applies this 
to the ministry on the same occasion. It is ••' the 
workman." not one who is no workman ; it is " the 
labourer." not the man who "'sits still" and never 
really makes a business of his duties or ever pro- 
perly performs them, that is pronounced " worthy " 
of a temporal support. For observe. Christ introdu- 
ces this canon of universal righteousness to seal and 
sanction his charge to them to make no provision 
for their journey ! Why ! because, others must 
make it for them ! because, •'• the workman is wor- 
thy of his meat !" Other reasons also appear 



621 

4. They were empowered in plenitude to work 
all kinds of miracles ; to " heal the sick, cleanse the 
lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils :" all this he 
charges them also to do ; and then immediately 
adds, " Freely ye have received, freely give." The 
reason is obvious, and the consistency of the whole 
is plain. It means, Do not make merchandise, nor 
aim at wealth, nor sell at a specific cost, nor sell at 
all, in the benevolent exercise of your powers. 
Heal and cure all you can ; and do it gratuitously. 
You must not be mercenary, or sordid ; you must 
not think to make your fortunes, or exercise these 
gifts in any worldly money-making way or for your 
own secular behoof. " And Judas Iscariot, who 
also betrayed him," was one of them. We can 
easily see how propense he might have been, and 
how tempted even the others, to make a fortune, 
a princely one, as (humanly speaking) easily they 
might, with such powers and functions at their con- 
trol ! Let us here distinguish between a support 
while occupied in the work ; and a money-making 
career of avarice and sacrilege. The latter is wholly 
forbidden, even in its first principles ; the former, 
is approved and inculcated : both in the same con- 
nection, in the same charge, and by the authority 
of the same Savior ! How impartial^is Quakerism! 
How sharp-sighted ! How disinterested ! How mag- 
nanimous ! How candid ! How inspired ! Accord- 
ing to the light, the workman is not worthy of his 
meat ! nor the laborer of his hire ! there is no dif- 
ference between receiving a competent support, for 
service of the most exalted and beneficial kind, per- 



formed with labor, sacrifice, toil ; and a reprobate 
and ••hireling" delinquency in otn:T : Besides, 
What was it that they had " freely received !" I 
cer of miracles specifically ! And how 
I that a competent ministry in onr day becomes 
snch ! how gets it the qualifications plainly requi- 
Htel Is ;: by native talent, by intuition, by con- 

:tion, by miraculous endowment ! Not so : but 
by the most exhausting and devoted application 
comparatively e rei e amplified ! by s: : medita- 
tion, midnight vigils, yean of thoughtful and de- 
bilitating care; by prayer; by lasting ; by afflic- 
tions ; by spiritual exerc ises of their own inten- 
aitv and solemnity: by St.:- ferial ; by ignom 
| : seeution onen, contempt in some relations, slan- 
der of motives, mean prevaricating envy, being 
made the theme of infidel jargon and debate., '-'the 
song of the drunkard.*' the jest of the mirthful, the 
raiEc. :: :he profane, and the object of inspired 

anciation. 

The very butt of slander, and the blot 

7 : 7 every shaft that mail: e r^ a sfa : I — C jttei. 

A competent education for the minis:; m no 

miracles are, cannot, I maintain, be acquired by 
any man on the globe, without cost, time, occupa- 
tion, and absorption of soul, through a process of 
seasoning and preparation ; which ought in ever- 
lasting equity to be considered in the argument i : 
that our non-miraculous acquis!:::. - m swesy one 
ktumm that mak-s them, have never come to us 



623 

" freely " in the sense of the passage. Just the re- 
verse. Under God, we have attained them (our 
official furniture— I mean) by our own self-denying 
personal effort, through a term of devoted years ! 
Under God, we have made them painfully our- 
selves ! Under God, whose strength has been our all 
in the agony, we are self-made and self-qualified 
" stewards of the mysteries of God." God qua- 
lifies men for glory and for office both, in a way 
which gives no premium to idleness, no sanction to 
presumption, no palliation to the hateful sin of su- 
pineness. Drones, idlers, usurpers, he abhors to- 
gether ; and he abhors " sorcerers " too, however 
refined their principles, or covert their address, or 
unknown to men their secret practisings ! Rev. 
21 : 8, 27. I say more on this topic, because 
Friends have it stereotyped and docketed, for in- 
exhaustible service in calumniating the ministers 
of God. 

But we cannot think a fixed salary, a regular in- 
come, proper; we object to stated compensation and 
a stipendiary ministry. Do you 1 How often would 
you be willing, and how much as related to the wants 
of life, to pay for the support of the ministry 1 How 
long ought the intervals of starvation to be ; and 
how certain the instances of ' something' grudgingly 
afforded, to encourage the appetite, or to clothe the 
limbs, or to house the person, in the mean time 1 I 
would know too ivho gave you what you have I who 
" gave himself for youf and whom do you "rob," 
if you starve or straiten meanly the ministers of his 
religion, who is " a jealous God?" Mai. 3: 8-18. 



624 

Where service is regular; where all the hours and 
powers are absorb ..oily'* in it ; where wants 

are constant and inevita lie to u men in the body ;'* 
rre a family as dear as others ia dependent; 
where all the reasons of support exist uniformly : 
why should ~ a competent worldly maintenai: 
be denied by those very persona ivho enjoy the di- 
advantage of the ministry": be seen 

that we are:.:: eleemosynary in our argument. We 
not mendicants, paupers, ilms-askers, ::• -:i.ice- 
men. We believe :: just, not kind : right, nof cha- 
in ! and this by c : mmon equi- 
jd divine authority nnited ! We mean that the 
•■ workman is worthy :: hia meat; the laborei 
his hire-" We mean that while the rich and the 
>oor should e :::::: '.:-.;:e :ogether a •• according to their 
several ability." so that there might "be an equali- 
;: assessment ; it should be done by both as a 
rfKering, a privilege, :. luty, an act of worship 
the Lord : as that to withhold which 
aa simony, as wrong as sacrilege. We mean, how- 

s r, that every man should be left to his per: 
freedom and responsibility in the matter; that no 
secolai tax should be levied for collection by 
magistracy : that no coertion should be used in the 
church of God, forcing them to honor the laws »1 
Christ — that is, ;: :;?aonor them. We place the 
>osidon npon the basis : :" moral and evangei 
alone: and say. if any man scorn, let him 
swei if ti G; ■■::. We want no grudging contribntoia 
press-gang for recruiting volunteers: no civil 
islation or taxation on the subject •■ My king- 



625 

dom is not of this world." Wo be to the system 
that denies it" ! 66 

But did not Paul refuse to receive such compen- 
sation 1 Answer, 

1. That he did on several occasions ; and the 
same is often done, to my certain knowledge, by 
the ministry of our day. There are occasions that 
demand, and others that become, a surrendry of 
right in the premises. These occasions existed 
more in the case and work and relations of the 
apostles, and the preachers of the first ages, intro- 
ducing and establishing Christianity with its lasting 
jurisdiction in the world, than to the same extent 
they ever can in all probability again. But mark 
the difference. Friends (1) argue from the excep- 
tion, and not from the rule. (2) They deny the 
law of Christ respecting support, because some of 
his noble servants occasionally decline the claim it 
gives them. (3) They nullify the virtue of the acts 
they panegyrize ; for, if there be no law in favor of 
support, there is plainly no right to it ; if there is 
prohibition of a maintenance, it were treason and 
perjury to demand it ; if it were sin and gross ini- 
quity to receive it, where, I ask, is the great virtue 
of declining it 1 In what a ridiculous light do they 
place those generous men, who tell us, as if it were 
worthy of approbation at least, that they voluntarily 
forewent — that to which they had no right ! they 
magnanimously forebore — from the sin of sacrilege ! 
their exalted apostolic virtue most excmplarily — 
omitted to rob the church of God ! Is it for such 
distinguished virtue as this, or for self-denial equal- 

79 



626 

3y illustrious, that preachers of the society, male 
and female, expect the reward of everlasting life 1 
Well ! We may soon expect to see men claim- 
ing statues, obelisks, and monumental honors, from 
congress, for the enormous civic virtues of not set- 
ting houses on fire, or practising assassination, or 
robbing banks, or for denying themselves from such 
desired gratifications ; if these principles of illu- 
mination become prevalent ! But, (4) Paul did 
something beside demit his claim magnanimously, 
when just occasion offered : he laid down the law 
of Christ's house on the subject at large ; main- 
tained his own right to what he spontaneously de- 
clined ; accepted " wages ,? of the better minded, at 
the very time, that, thus supported, he served others, 
and these wealthy as those were not, from whom 
(and it was their " inferiority " and dishonor) he re- 
fused to receive any thing. All this is most certain 
truth. I am both sure of it, and sure that I can 
prove it against all sober objections ; and that from 
many passages : I will however refer only to two. 
The first occurs in 1 Cor. 9 : 1-16. The reader may 
peruse it all, to verse 27, if he will : for the argu- 
ment, is continuous and glorious. I shall give its 
scope with select quotations. 

Corinth was the rich and niggardly community 
whom Paul served at the charges of the Macedo- 
nian churches, who were comparatively poor. In 
that city he was their missionary ; and also in his 
extremity, he there " wrought " at tent-making for 
a time, rather than receive any thing from them. 
Acts, 18 : 3. His reasons we shall see hereafter— 



627 

Friends may well dread to look at them ! In the 
eighth chapter he is discussing the casuistry of 
using " things offered unto idols ;" and after des- 
patching the main points, he introduces and large- 
ly enforces this principle ; that christian liberty 
ought not to be abused ; and that often one's own 
rights are to be foregone and surrendered for the 
sake of the gospel. This principle he illustrates in 
the whole of the ninth chapter, and then more ap- 
plies it in the tenth and onward. But how illus- 
trates he it 1 Mark ! by citing his own example 
toward themselves. He had the perfect liberty 
and the perfect right to a competent temporal 
support ; but he was so far from insisting on 
it from them, that from them he refused it perse- 
veringly. " Am I not an apostle 1 am I not free V y 
he inquires. " Mine answer to them that do exa- 
mine me," (they were probably Friends — so ancient 
is the sect substantially in several aspects,) " is this ; 
Have we not power (right, authority) to eat and to 
drink ] Have we not power to lead about a sister, a 
wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren 
of the Lord, and Cephas'? ( Peter 1) or I only 
and Barnabas," are we specially excluded from it 1 
" have not we power to forbear working 1 Who go- 
eth a warfare [he might perhaps afford to " sit still " 
in meeting] at any time at his own charges 1 Who 
planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit 
thereof I or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of 
the milk of the flock 1 Say I these things as a man 1 
or saith not the law the same also 1 For it is writ- 
ten in the law of Moses, Thou siialt not muzzle 



628 



THE MOUTH OF THE OX THAT TREADETH OUT THE 

corn. Doth God take care for oxen 1 or saith he 
it altogether for our sakes 1 For our sakes, no 
doubt, this is written : that he that ploweth, should 
plow in hope ; and that he that thresheth in hope, 
should be partaker of his hope. IF WE HAVE 
SOWN UNTO YOU SPIRITUAL THINGS, 
IS IT A GREAT THING IF WE SHALL 
REAP YOUR CARNAL THINGS V Yes ! 
Paul. Friends know by inspiration that such a reap- 
ing would prove you a base reprobate, a hireling, a 
hypocrite ! But let us farther listen to Paul's heresy. 
" If others be partakers of this power over you, 
are not we rather 1 Nevertheless we have not used 
this power ; but suffer all things, lest we should hin- 
der the gospel of Christ. Do ye not know that they 
who minister about holy things, live of the things 
of the temple ; and they who wait at the altar, 
are partakers with the altar 1 EVEN SO HATH 
THE LORD ORDAINED THAT THEY WHO 
PREACH THE GOSPEL SHOULD LIVE OF 
THE GOSPEL." What could be plainer or more 
decisive 1 Friends have a method of evading it 
however which is sufficiently mean. It is by saying 
that it is a spiritual " living of the gospel ;" and the 
compensation of enjoying "holy things" more than 
others, that is meant. I will tell an anecdote. A 
Friend, in one of his moon-struck peregrinations of 
preaching, came with his retinue to a village and 
held a conventicle. There he denounced the wick- 
edness of supporting the regular ministrations of 
the gospel, and especially his who statedly officiated 



629 

in the place : and among other things, " clearly seen 
in the light " which " makes manifest and deceives 
nobody," was this gloss, just given, about spiritual 
living and " holy things " in the ministry. After 
the sedentary engagement was adjourned, a layman 
asked an interview with the preacher. O yes ! was 
the reply ; all kindness and good will to men : 
perfectly willing to see the friend. I thought, sir, 
said he, that Paul was a christian, till I heard your 
sermon this afternoon. The Friend looked, and an- 
swered, O certainly; I never meant to say he was 
not a christian. Thee is in a mistake surely. Re- 
joined the querist, Well, possibly. But let us see. 
You said that they were ' holy things' alone that 
Paul respected. I did. But Paul immediately de- 
clares ' But I have used none of these things.' 

Now, if he never used them, and they were essen- 
tially spiritual and holy things, and he even ' gloried,' 
v. 15. in total abstinence from them, how could he 
be a christian 1 Will you, sir, who know, inform 
me 1 O Friend, I see thee is in no mind to be in- 
structed. Farewell. Thus endeth the story. 

I now pass to the other passage to which I refer- 
red ; premising its historical as well as moral con- 
nection with the former. Before I quote, I will beg 
the serious or the honest reader to peruse it earefully 
once: 2 Cor. 11 : 7-15. The outline of its history 
is this. In Paul's absence from Corinth, where he 
first broke ground and " planted " the church alone, 
many false teachers had " unawares crept in ;" and 
were bent upon decoying or rather reforming the 
church away from Paul. They impeached his mo- 



630 

tives ; denied his apostleship ; derided his preten- 
sions ; tried to supersede his influence, to defame 
his orthodoxy, to degrade his person, and to ruin his 
usefulness. Among other things, they accused him 
of being a " hireling " in his general practice, and 
of preaching for money ; and to put him down and 
keep the elevated vantage-ground above him, they 
gloried in their own preaching without fee, emolu- 
ment, or reward ! they were as disinterested exactly 
as Friends — in vilifying the ministry of God. And 
they seem for a time to have prospered in their cor- 
rupting influence. On these accounts, be it known, 
he would receive nothing in the way of salary from 
the church at Corinth. Not that many pious per- 
sons there were unwilling to do their duty : he would 
accept nothing from them, because of these inno- 
vating competitors. He preferred to receive a salary 
from the poor churches at the North ; this was the 
dishonor of the one, the lasting renown of the other. 
With this exposition, take his words ; and observe 
how charitable real inspiration is, toward those who 
corrupt the truth, traduce the ministry, and " per- 
vert the right ways of the Lord." Thus ; " Have I 
committed an offence in abasing myself that ye 
might be exalted," i. e. with the benefit, " because 
I have preached unto you the gospel of God freely l 
I robbed other churches, ^taking wages of them, 
to do you service. And when I was present with 
you, and wanted, I was chargeable to no man : for 
that which was lacking to me, the brethren who 
came from Macedonia supplied : (see chap. 8 : 1-6, 
for the resources and the financiering of their be- 



631 

nevolence :) and in all things I have kept myself 
from being burdensome unto you, and so will I 
keep myself. As the truth of Christ is in me, no 
man shall stop me of this boasting in the regions of 
Achaia :" i. e. in Corinth and its wide vicinity. He 
proceeds. " Wherefore 1 because I love you not! 
God knoweth." He means to deny that want of love 
to them was the reason of such ill-looking independ- 
ence. The real reasons of it he next specifies ; let 
Friends hear it and tremble in a new vocation, and 
quake on a just account. " But what I do, that I 
will do, that I may cut off* occasion from them 
that desire occasion ; that wherein they glory, «,£() 
OCr 3 they may be found even as we. For such .^33 
O^are false apostles, (^deceitful workers, {^trans- 
forming themselves into the apostles of Christ. — 
(t? 3 And no marvel ; for satan himself is transform- 
ed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great 
thing if his ministers also be transformed as the 
ministers of righteousness ; whose end '' — alas ! 
they little think of it — " shall be according to their 
works." On this I remark, 1. That Friends are a 
very ancient society in some of their peculiarities. 
The opposers of clerical influence at Corinth were 
enlightened much in their way. Their leader re- 
sembled " an angel of light" more luciferous, for 
aught I know, than Fox himself. The apostle very 
often sketches their portrait, or traces a limb of 
their body, in other places of his epistles to the Co- 
rinthians. He felt about their preaching, which I 
suppose was equally sincere with theirs, very much, 
to be plain, as I do respecting that of Friends, as 



:ed to the salvation of Boola. Z C '::. 11 : 1-6. 
u Bii: I fear, lest by any means., as the serpent 
guile i Eve through his sobtilty sc no minds 
should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in 
Christ. For if he that cometh peeacheth another 
Jescs. whom we have nor preached ; or if ye ee- 
cErvE another spirit, which ye have nof r.:ved, 

another gospel, which ye have not accept 
ye might well bear with me." T b e I :-.. a word is im- 
properly &m in our translation. J. They resem- 
bled Friends in the distinguishing doctrine that the 
christian ministry, apostles and all, had no right to 
a temporal support ; and in this immense and va- 
poring disinterestedness (pride with a holy eqa 
44 they gloried." A style of masquerade this, that 
has been long in vogne and appears to admirable 

Ullage ! Hence Paul, to •'•' cut off" the "occa- 
sion " of their boasting, and hx himself on the same 
level with them in that particular, would never ac- 
cept any maintenance from Corinth. •* For what 
is ::." he inquires. - wherein ye were interior 

ihei churches, except it be that I myself ■ 
not burdensome to you! Forgive me this wi 
1-2 : 13. 1 Thess 2 : 6. ?, I: was no: I. Friends. 
that made the troth ! 3. They are denounced as 
miuisters of the devil: denounced by an apostle : :" 
God! T„:s :s sir.:: a sentiment indeed! My pen 
seems to loiter and its ink to freeze. Like the arch- 
fiend himself, their light was weiy much annoyed 
by ** the word of God." And yet their characteris- 

.. m tying was in then gratuitous ministry; as it 

:eached Paul and the ; - other apostles " (1 C 



9 : 5.) of " hireling " baseness. Like satan too, 
whose ministers they were, they preached without 
a salary : for he has been notoriously engaged in 
preaching gratis from the beginning! Who gave 
him a call to the see of Eden 1 who paid him for 
his first sermon there 1 It was all disinterested, all 
without fee, all opposed to a stipendiary ministry ! 
What a veteran he, in the anti-salary cause ! What 
a venerable precedent! What an ancient example ! 
Could a real " angel of light " set off the matter 
more luminously as it ought to be ! Hence all the 
whole succession of ministerial agents, that have 
taken orders under his renowned authority, and 
gloried in their amazing virtue in abstaining from 
that to which they had (they said) no right, and 
which it were spiritual felony (they said) to touch ; 
have resembled each other not only in that particu- 
lar, but peculiarly, since the christian era, in their 
organized antipathy to Paul ! and generally in their 
devout and spiritual objection to the ' outward ' tes- 
timony, called improperly, " the word of God !" 
They must at Corinth have put the epistles of 
Paul, I ween, very low down as " a secondary rule !" 
They did all they could to show the people there 
" a more noble and excellent rule," than the ' out- 
ward ' one of Paul's ministry. It was a fine occa- 
sion for some such " opening " as that of " the 
light in every man." I remark, once more, on this 
tremendous passage, which not one Friend in ten 
thousand understands ; 4. That the criterion of 
their development and detection was, what it is, 

SIMPLY THE WORD OF Goi), THE INSPIRED SCRIP- 

60 



634 

Tt res. One object, a great one, of the second epis- 
tle to the Corinthians, was to apprise the church of 
the real character and correspondence of the in- 
novators, and help them to the proper criterion of 
discrimination. The same etherial test remains to 
this day ! The principles involved are precisely the 
same. All the children of false light tremble at 
its inquisition and degrade its dignity. By what 
other, not to say better, touchstone, shall corrup- 
ters be tried ! By their own inspiration \ that ora- 
cle sustains them. By their smoothness I You can 
as soon condemn w an angel of light. 5 ' By their 
good works \ Why, they are " transformed as the 
ministers of righteousness;" and they know how to 
act their part so as " to deceive, if it were possible, 
the very elect." Blessed be God, this is ultimately 
impossible ! The main reason, however, as the 
means of their conservation in the truth, is this : 
they judge not by "the appearance ;"' they judge 
" righteous judgment," impartially using in all di- 
rections " the measuring reed " of angels and of 
saints, which is THE WORD OF GOD. Ob- 
serve the style in which the Spirit of God denounces 
these gratuitous preachers : he denounces them in 
a class ! "for such are false apostles.'' He says not 
these, as if referring personally to the men at Co- 
rinth : but such as these 6: yap toiovtoi, meaning all 
such, no matter where or when they live. * Behold, 
the picture. Is it like— like whom V It is not like 
the original of a true minister of the true God. In 
Palestine there were forty-eight cities of the Le- 
vites ; a tribe (one-twelfth of the population) devot- 



635 

ed to sacerdotal service, maintaining the wor- 
ship of God ; and the whole population required to 
contribute proportionately to sustain the provision- 
ary institute. " Even so hath the Lord or- 
dained THAT THEY WHO PREACH THE GOSPEL 

should live of the gospel." If this were not 
" a secondary rule," and to be so " esteemed," I 
should think its evidence quite conclusive. No doubt 
at all have I, possessing no light within that can 
nullify the word of God, that it is indeed his ordi- 
nance divine that the ministry of his gospel should 
be supported as competently and regularly as their 
wants recur ; that it is the duty of every person in 
the world in some way to contribute heartily to this 
end ; that a faithful ministry deserve such a sup- 
port, if any other class of " workmen " in society de- 
serve it ; that it is the direct and supreme interest 
of all men, and of all communities, to honor this 
constitution ; that no local community can afford 
to do without its permanent influence ; and that 
every other theory in the case is human and not 
divine, wrong and not right, and as much opposed 
to the temporal as it is more terribly to the eternal 
interests of our kind ! Every place in the world 
needs the benefit and the blessing of a competent 
and regular christian ministry — infinitely more than 
they need — in contrast or competition — wealth, 
health, or any sublunary good! But I have no 
more to say, rich as the subject is — except this : 
.to oppose the competent temporal maintenance of 
the christian ministry, is the work of the murderer 
of souls ; is unreasonable ; unscriptural ; is ad- 



G36 

verse to the h:^h:-st interests of probationary man; 
and to be resolved into the unity e infidelity, 

the deceit and the real irreligion. of the reign 
antichrist and the empire of death. •■ He that 
hath ears to hear, let him hear." 

IV. On the right c: females to the ministerial 
office, equal with that :: the other sex. as alleged 
by Friends. I shah remark in conclusion. 

1. They say, " male and female " are all one in 
Christ; therefore they are alike competent. An- 
swer, for the same reason, so are ■• barbarian and 
scythian. bond and free. - .-:se and unwise." girls and 
boys! The premises do not warrant the concla- 
sion. They refer to membership and communion; 
no* to othhte ana statmui u: the e march. Nor do 
such expressions refer a: ail to the subject of the 
ministry ; and where such reference is plain, women 
are as plainly prohibited. But. 

-. They have very valuable gifts, that ought not 
to be list :: me :l:/::\\, True, For one I am less 
offended rather, to hear an inspired icoman than 
man ! But is mere no v.- ay for their gifts to be ex- 
ercised, economized, and honored ; but bv put 
city, headship, office, and a face of nudity staring at 
. " tireds of men ! "for it is a shame for women to 
speak in the church."-" 

•3. The Lord has used them aforetime, as say the 
scriptures. I reply, (1) Yon here argne from the 
excey the rule. Deborah, Huld ah. and a 

Tery few others, were occasionally and rarely em- 
mmma >n extraordinary circumstances and for ends 
as uncommon. But. was this ordinary at all ! Who 



637 

ever heard of such a monster, in the history of the 
Jewish priesthood, as a priestess ! A heathen py- 
thoness or vestal indeed — but no such order, no 
such thing, among the Israel of God ! With Friends 
the order exists. Ordinarily too the inspiratae — 
inspired women — are far the more numerous bench. 
Matrons and spinsters sometimes doubly out-num- 
ber their masculine co-presbyters ; and often out- 
preach them too, in quantity and quality, matter and 
manner ! (2) When they allege it as proper to the 
new dispensation peculiarly, to equalize the sexes 
in office, they argue again from most questionable 
premises. Jesus Christ often sent out preachers, 
on one occasion " seventy " at once ; but, in no 
recorded instance of his ministry did he Kr* ever 

ORDAIN OR AUTHORIZE A WOMAN TO PREACH THE 

gospel. (3) When they speak of a woman " pro- 
phecying," and quote Acts, 2 : 17, 18. 21 : 9. and 
possibly a few less considerable places ; we can 
easily reply (what no evidence can answer or refute) 
first, That such an inference as theirs would de- 
monstrate the worst kind of absolute contradiction 
in the scriptures ; where it is a proper rule of inter- 
preting, to compare related passages, to let the 
book speak for itself, to prefer the clear to the 
doubtful, the certain to the uncertain, the easy to the 
difficult ; and not the contrary. And, second, That 
the word prophecy with all its cognates, is used 
throughout the Bible with such latitude as to show 
that it is generic, not specific ; and of itself deter- 
mines nothing in respect to office ! 68 The passage 
quoted from Joel, refers mainly to the ordinary cha- 



635 

raciers of a true revival of religion, where the vouncr 
and the old of both sexes are brought to believe 
and love the gospel. Hence their speech is differ- 
ent. Every one of them in some way begins to 
''prophecy;" for. "out ol the abundance of the 
heart the mouth speaketh." Third. In that age 
of miracles and prodigies and portents, no doubt. 
the exceptions were to be more expected, and were 
probably more frequent ; still, they were exceptions 
to the rule, and exceptions only, that confirmed it. 

My main position is. That the rule is laid doicn 
in the Xeic Testament as clear as day, and as abso- 
lute as the authority of God. against a female mi- 
nistry. If this is proved, we must infer the fallacy 
of their whole system too ; for it stands on a kind 
of inspiration — •'•' strange fire" — that sanctions such 
a ministry. 

I will here refer tc two passages, each of which, 
and more especially both, are conclusive. If any 
one will not consent to this, I am sure that it is ot 
no use to argue with him. There are multitudes of 
•• unreasonable and wicked men. for all men have 
not faith ;" 2 Thess. 3 : 2. from whom we may well 
pray, as did Paul, ••' that we may be delivered.'' If 
any man or woman is resolved, at all events, in the 
true temper of the fides carbonaria or believing 
what others believe with whom we were educated : 
I can only say. my mind is not so disciplined. I 
prefer evidence, truth, divine authority. To believe 
without evidence or against it. may justly define an 
infidel, but never a christian. 

The first passage occurs in 1 Cor. 14 : 29-40. 



639 

Here the apostle speaks of the manner in which 
" the prophets " or public ministers are to exercise 
their gifts : mark, the prophets or regular ministry ; 
not the people or all indiscriminately. But are fe- 
males authorized 1 Hear ! " Let your women keep 
silence in the churches ; for it is not permitted unto 
them to speak : but they are commanded to be under 
obedience, as also saith the law." I infer, 1. That 
both dispensations are alike in this matter. The 
gospel forbids them; "as also saith the law." 
Shall we charge the Holy Ghost with judaizing? 
2. That women, as such, are forbidden " to speak ;" 
which " is not permitted unto them." They are 
positively commanded to " keep silence in the 
churches :" — not u a silent meeting;" for the other 
sex speak. Barclay, and other phosphors "whose 
fire was kindled at that prophet's lamp," allege that 
this was only a special interdict under which the 
ladies at Corinth were put, because of their re- 
markable garrulity and forwardness ; with a few 
other things about as wise. I reply — the allegation 
is manifestly false ! It is a shameful fabrication 
against the plainest evidence. The reasons alleg- 
ed by the apostle, here and elsewhere, are plainly 
universal ; no honesty with its eyes open can re- 
strict them to the females of any particular church. 
" And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their 
husbands at home ; for G^r* it is a shame for wo- 
men TO SPEAK IN THE CHURCH." A yOUilg Spinster 

of the vocation, once asked me if I would literalize 
the order above as to "asking their husbands V* I 
replied substantially thus ; Not in these times. And 



640 

if you demand, why virgin ladies were not prohibit- 
ed by statute, the only reason of which I can think 
is this — there was then no occasion for it : the young 
females of that church and that age. were too sen- 
sible and modest ever to think of the shameful 
usurpation: •■What! came the word of God out 
from you I" Are you the centre and the metropolis 
of all Christendom, from which the word of God ra- 
diated toward others ! or rather, a place on its dis- 
tant frontier., that ought to aspire to learn, rather 
than teach., what practices are fit ] ~ or came it unto 
you only V Are you the only pagans that it reach- 
ed and christianized, that you should innovate and 
be examples in the matter ! ■'•' If any man think 
himself to be a prophet, or spiritual." yes. if he hap- 
pen to think himself peculiarly full of light. •• let 
him acknowledge that the things that I write unto 
you are CT* the commandments of the Lord. But 
if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant." 

I omit the consideration here of a passage of 
more difficulty, for that reason alone. I allude to 
11 : 3-16. of the same epistle: and remark. 1. 
That having faithfully pondered its meaning. I have 
no doubt of what it is ; and none that it is more than 
consistent with what occurs soon after in the passage 
we have considered. 2. That •'•' praying and pro- 
phecying " there, refer generally to the offices of 
public worship, and determine nothing, at most, 
about ichat is laic on the point : though they might 
refer to what was practice or innovation and disor- 
der in that church. The law he reserves, and lays 
down in order in the fourteenth chapter Cr 3 soon 



641 

following. 3. The headship of man; the proper sub- 
ordination of woman, especially in public worship ; 
the modesty and reserve, without which her sex has 
foregone at once its most necessary safeguard and 
its finest ornament ; and the sin against Christ of 
violating these high principles of relative decorum : 
are clearly deducible and amply demonstrated in 
the argument. 

The other proof-passage to which I referred is 
found in 1 Tim. 2: 9-15. 3 : 1, 2, read continu- 
ously as it is written. I commend it to the eye that 
reads this, in the opened Bible ; while I observe, 

1. That audacity itself will hardly say that it is not 
as wide in its jurisdiction as the species or the sex. 

2. That it is all a continuous argument, though se- 
parated by the chapters and verses through which 
it extends. Hence there is special force in the ex- 
pression, "If a man desire the office of bishop," (by 
which I very certainly understand the pastor of a 
congregation, or a pastor at large,) " he desireth a 
good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the 
husband of one wife" — why not the wife of one 
husband T Because, 3. He had forever precluded 
such a supposition, as not more monstrous in na- 
ture than contrary to express and luminous statute, 
which he had just before laid down : where, having 
enjoined on the sex who "profess godliness" (would 
to God that all such possessed it too) to " adorn them- 
selves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and 
sobriety ; ,? he proceeds to utter the following sweep- 
ing and universal prohibition ; " Let the woman 
learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer 

81 



64-J 

riot a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over 
the man. but to be in silence." He of coarse refers 
here to public teaching, that of office alone ; for 
elsewhere he enjoins the sex to be " teachers of 
good things." Tit. 2 : :?-5. The office of a teacher 
implies superiority ; and its public daties would 
convey the headship of the man, and of the whole 
congregation, for the time and even aftsncard, im- 
properly to a woman ! 4. The inhibition from the 
ministry is as express as words can make it. while 
the whole argument is comprehensive and com- 
plete. By implication too it is applicable not re- 
motely to the magistracy — which is properly incom- 
petent to a woman in public and in private ! Mi- 
chal, Jezebel, Athaliah, and other specimens in 
scripture ; and the Cieopatras, the Marys, and even 
the Elizabeths, of profane history, commend the 
wisdom of the doctrine. But 5. What reasons are 
assigned ! I answer, umversal owes aloxe ! 
" For Adam was first formed, then Eve." The 
man is the senior, the principal, the head. -For 
the man is not of the woman ;" that is. orisrinallv ; 
*■ but the woman of the man. Neither was the 
man created for the woman, but the woman for the 
man." 1 Cor. 11 : 8. 9. This is the order of God ; 
the order from the beginning ; the proper order of 
our first parents and of all their posterity; although 
the laws of worldly gallantry, and feudal chivalrv, 
and foxian usurpation, constitute the principles of 
its violation in modern ages. | 2] "And Adam was 
not deceived." Here is another reason. It is a 
fact that Adam was not duped by Satan at all, He 



643 

"hearkened to the voice of his wife," resigned his 
headship for the time to her instructions, and sinned 
with her, probably more from inordinate affection 
merely than intellectual infatuation. But (3) " the 
woman being deceived was in the transgression ;" 
that is, she lent her easy confidence to the argu- 
ments of the devil, sophisticating the word of God 
in the way of his vocation : and she frequently does 
this yet with such tender feminine facility that she 
must not have the ministry " committed " to her ! 
This reason, though densely stated, plainly indi- 
cates the necessity of intellectual strength and the 
vigor of a well disciplined and masculine mind, in 
the high and holy trust of the christian ministry. 
The soft and silly sentiment that sincerity and 
singleness of heart is all, may be Quakerism — but 
is not Christianity. Let simpletons go to congress 
or write an encyclopedia or glitter on a throne ; but 
keep them forever from the christian ministry ! How 
many facts have I witnessed of softness and sympa- 
thy, elegantly perverting the truth, to accommodate 
the feelings of distress, by the kindred feelings of a 
lady oracle ! Their feelings almost govern them : 
their influence is often a kind of fascination ; musi- 
cal as that which first seduced the mother of man- 
kind. And who could resist such refinement of in- 
fluence, when every nerve was a conductor, every 
feeling an advocate ! They make converts, for aught 
I know. But I suppose them ordinarily nearer 
heaven before than afterward. It was so with the 
first effort of mother Eve ! The sex in their places, 
I honor and respect as much as any man. " There 



644 

thev are privileged :" there their tenderness, their 
fine attractive courtesy, the kind assuasion of their 
manners, their dignity and majesty of movement, 
their usefulness and high desert, especially when 
the gem of piety radiates through an eye of sound 
intelligence — when education and modesty, pru- 
dence and self-control, charity and sentiment, com- 
bine to bless the spheres of private life, to make of 
home a sublunary heaven, and to train a household 
in the ways of wisdom for the happier state eter- 
nal ! I am too much the friend of the sex to flatter 
them — which never yet was done from a good mo- 
tive I and consulting their happiness for both worlds. 
I would have them at once fully honored in those 
rights., powers, and immunities, all and singular, 
which their benevolent Maker originally ordained 
for them ; and at the same time guarded and re- 
stricted to those spheres, for which exclusively and 
obviously they were designed, and from which ad- 
venturing, the word of God considers them as 
•■' usurping authority." doing violence to their pro- 
per delicacy, incurring •'• shame " before the uni- 
verse. It must be an amadou temper alone, one 
would think, and very unlovely in the conjugal re- 
gards — but, inspiration has no alternative ! God 
takes hold of them ; the divinity possr.vs-s and 
overwhelms them ; when it is all passivity and suf- 
ferance, and wrong is right!® 

Una salus yictis, null am sperare salutem. — Via : 

Tiir :r... hope the vanquished can command 
Is desperation or. submission bland. 



645 

I cannot admit, however, that God is to answer so 
absolutely -for their wrong actions. Their agency is 
quite distinct, much their own, and very absolutely 
accountable ! I know — and alas ! often have I 

WEPT WITH REASON AT THE FACT, that they Call 

throw off the whole responsibility. God is surety 
for them ! He inspired them. This they know — - 
as well as Eve, when, " being deceived she was in 
the transgression." This they know — and could 
never survive the discovery of the opposite ! This 
some of them have been heard to affirm : a pretty 
frame of mind for impartial investigation ! Preach 
on then ! Tell the people how clearly you see 
" that the tree is good for food, and that it is plea- 
sant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make 
one wise ! and take of the fruit thereof and eat ! 
and give also to others whom you can influence : 
and fear not ! Remember who has assured you that 
" you shall not surely die ;-" and call to mind the 
ancient and venerable example of that lady, first of 
her sex, who acted so before you ! She was the 
first female preacher that " usurped authority over 
the man ;" but not the first preacher whose labors 
were spontaneous and without salary ! There is 
another reason for the prohibition, which deserves 
to be considered ; (4) " notwithstanding, she shall 
be saved in child-bearing, if they continue in faith, 
and charity, and holiness, with sobriety." I would 
thus at large explain or paraphrase it : She is in- 
deed restricted from the offices of authority, head- 
ship, and hardier toil ; but there is ample compen- 
sation and honor in her case. If the scenes which 



her pre s e n : b illomines are more retired, they 

I less dignified, or useful, or influential. To her 
especially is committed the nortnre of child: 
Her downy lap is the cradle of their infancy ; her 
bosom their pillow and their nutriment ; her arms 
theii rhicle and defence. And their minds, in the 
: forming time of I yield to her plastic influ- 
ence. She stamps their characters ; forms their man- 
neis; and almost fixes their destinies ! And what 
kind of an education ought she to hare, fitting her 
for this high and more than senatorial trust ! That 
kind that so expands the mind, and elevates the 
ideas, that now e i g fa est reg i - are to shine in 
the eyes of fools 1 to be commended in the va; 

:Ies of fashion, for her manners, her brillia 
aid he: ::ess : '"^h:sr :-:i::n::tg" is neeirhp the: 
of " plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of 
putting on of apparel F* Or ought she to learn 
that " the body is more than raiment, 1 ' and th e b 
more than the body; and that her best orname Ms 
are those that last forever — u that which is not cor- 
rupt t e en the ornament of a meek and quiet 
spirit, ~hich is in the sight :: God of great price 
I am here rebuking many are not Friends, more 

than them — for I bear I h e m r e : : : a dial fa e : e : :t fa 
ladies are ordinarily patterns for ethers in several 
respe::s ; in dehcacp :•: a::i:e ; in neatness, vrith 
little comparative extravagance; in comfort i 
rrtdence. in respecting heahh end the ireper ends 
of dress and in being in a good degree indepe 
ent of the caprices of the ton. But far more than 
this is necessary and morallyinthe educa- 



647 

tion of woman. Deserves she no intellectual cul- 
ture? no mental discipline, no science, no cultivated 
vigor of thought 1 Ought not her understanding to 
be marshalled in its operations, wonted on common 
and on sacred subjects to philosophize correctly, 
enriched with the spoils of solid learning rather than 
the tinsel accomplishments of life? Ought she not 
to be fitted for her noble sphere ; qualified to in- 
struct, as well as sparkle ; to last, as well as shine 1 
Ought she not to know that gems and drapery, 
and all the courtly foppery of the worldly and the 
gay, degrade rather than dignify ; becoming the 
cause, as they were at first only the effect, of vanity 
and pride ? How ought woman to be promoted in 
all that is excellent and useful 1 How ought her 
breath to be prayer and her actions piety ! How 
skilfully should she plant the seeds of life eternal in 
a soil comparatively unoccupied ! How well should 
she understand the nature and the ruin of the com- 
mon apostacy; and the " new and living way" by 
which we are restored through the rent veil of the 
Redeemer's flesh ! Like the mother of Dodderidge, 
she should know how to lecture from the tiles around 
the fire-place and the common objects of life ! and 
like the mother of Timothy, should she take care 
that each one of her charge may " from a child 
know the holy scriptures, which are able to make 
us wise unto salvation through faith which is in 
Christ Jesus." This is the exalted service to which 
God promotes her ; and I have no doubt that her 
real influence on the salvation or destruction of 
souls is of immense and uncomputed efficacy, in 



648 

the development of their destiny forever ! That 
influence is wrong, if not right. It is bad, if not 
good. It is neglect, if not assiduity. It is vanity, 
if not wisdom ; wickedness, if not religion. Be- 
sides, impressions here are strongest. They are 
first, and ordinarily indelible. Tell me — Is not this 
enough for her 1 If she did this well," or compe- 
tently prepared to do it, would she wish to be a ma- 
gistrate or a minister? would she have time for the 
duties of the foreign office'! could she be a physi- 
cian, a lawyer, or a judge 1 Let her magnify her 
appropriate work. Let her love her proper sphere ; 
" looking well to the ways of her household and 
eating not the bread of idleness." I scarce ever 
knew, said the late Dr. Mason, a fine man, but, upon 
inquiry, I ascertained that he had a fine mother. 
So is it almost universally. If all mothers were wise 
and faithful, there would be more Jacobs and fewer 
Esaus in every family. What a charge ! How 
competent ought she to be to this high work ! It is 
that to which God hath appointed her. As such she 
should appreciate it well ; realize it solemnly ; oc- 
cupy her place, with serene self-devotement and re- 
signed piety; prepare herself to suffer, as well as 
do, all the will of God. 

Our outward acts indeed admit restraint ; 

'Tis not in things o'er thought to domineer. 

If nothing more than purpose is our power, 

Our purpose firm is equal to the deed. 

Who does the best his circumstance allows, 

Does well, acts nobly, angels could no more. — Young. 



649 

Thus, well and wisely should a christian female 
know her place and keep it. For her reward is 
rich and her salvation sure. " She shall be saved " 
in this way of real excellence, glorifying God ; that 
is, if she " continues" in it and sustains her duties 
there, in faith and benevolence, with real wisdom 
joined, vindicating the grandeur of her being as 
originally produced, and the splendor of her desti- 
ny as an immortal, though a sinner, restored for- 
ever through the grace that is in Jesus Christ. 

What now are we to think of her usurpations I 
That they are inspired 1 By whom l Him who 
inspired the first example of the sort ! What mur- 
ky and mischievous inspiration ! It is well adapted 
to ruin domestic scenes ; to kill the charities of na- 
ture that love the circle of " sweet home ;" to out- 
rage, invert, defeat, all the ends of order in society ! 
to make confusion, folly, misery — infidelity in the 
end ; where God had appointed order, beauty, bless- 
ing ! For if a woman desire " the office of a bi- 
shop," she is only resuming her old way, desiring 
or taking the fruit that is — forbidden. 

Nor reigns ambition in bold man alone ; 
Soft female hearts the rude invader own. 
But there, indeed, it deals in nicer things 
Than routing armies and dethroning kings. 

* * * * 

The sex we honor, while their faults we blame ; 
Nor thank their faults for such a fruitful theme. 

* * * * 

A dearth of words a woman need not fear ; 
But 'tis a task indeed to learn — to hear ! 

* * ¥t * 

82 



650 



Doubly, like echo, Bound is her de. 

And the last word is her eternal right. 

* * * * 

She strikes each point with native force of mind ; 
"While puzzled learning blunders far be: 

* * * * 

Whal angeJf would these be, who In is excel 

In theologies — could they sew as well ! 

* l - * 

An angel '. pardon my mistaken pen, 
A shameless woman is the worst of men 

* * - * 

2s"?-ird in nothing should a woman be, 
But veil her very wit with modesty. 
Li: man ffisc lYer, let not her display : 
But yield her charms of mind with sweei Jc 
Or, •• far a sign," if i; naked " one must go," 10 
Select some sterner victim for the show. 
But test the claiming inspiration well ; 
Or tr us: too soon .a forgery from hell. 
Things that are lovely and of good report 
B;: ill consist m& sock outlandish sport. 
I would, were he :'• i. -refer that Fqa 

i be " a sign v to teach the orthc : 
And • testify " to hesitating Friends 
Where inspiration or begins or ends, 
But know sue!:, duties of rare pie:-". 
Iff j lady Friend, may next solicit ther 
Alas ! how fevr. in these lirenerate da] 
TVou.i : — .-. the mandate in i;= equal ways ! 
Still, for the best we hope and should prepa. : , 
Some, if th ? occasion called, perhaps there are ! 
In times like ours, few striking " signs " are found : 
Bat soon wiii Friends, who knows ? they may abound! 

* a - * 

Frown not, ye fair ! so much your rights we prize 
hate those :- iita mat take you from our e"~ a 
Those arts deceptive, which, though well refined, 
Infc :: y : m manners and pervert your mind ; 






651 

Transform your husbands into passive drones, 
And for like tameness educate your sons ; 
Depose the headship of your proper Lords ; 
Who love you less for your usurping words : 
The arts that metamorphose and disguise 
Your tender womanhood, in wisdom's eyes ; 
That clash with all the institute of God, 
And challenge from his righteous hand — the rod ! 
True to your duty, thank the christian code 
For all your dignity, your safe abode ; 
And, in his church, hear others preach ! be still, and worship 
God ! 7i 

In the conclusion, I commend the Bible to the 
higher and more devout estimate of every reader. 
To the worldly or fanatical neglecter of " the word 
of God," I would say — 

Retire, and read thy Bible, to be gay. 
There truths abound of sovereign aid to peace : 
Ah ! do not prize them less, because inspired ; 
As thou, and thine, are apt and proud to do. 
If not inspired, that pregnant page had stood, 

Time's treasure, and the wonder of the wise ! 
* * * * 

'Tis easy ; it invites thee ; it descends 

From heaven to woo and waft thee whence it came. 

Read and revere the sacred page ; a page 

Where triumphs immortality ; a page 

Which not the whole creation could produce : 

Which not the conflagration shall destroy. 

In nature's ruins not one letter lost : 

'Tis printed in the mind of God forever. — Young. 

" He said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart 
to believe all that the prophets have spoken ! Ought 
not Christ to have suffered these things, and to en- 



652 

ter into his glory 1 And beginning at Moses and 
all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the 
scriptures the things concerning himself. And he 
said unto them, these are the words which I spake 
unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things 
must be fulfilled which were written in the law 
of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, 
concerning me. Then opened he their understand- 
ing that they might understand the scriptures." 
Luke, 24 : 25-27, 44, 45. Thus, the illumination 
of Christ is always in subserviency to our knowledge 
of the scriptures. It is so now, as it was and will 
be. He illumines our minds not without his writ- 
ten word, nor in opposition to it, nor as if the illu- 
mination itself were a rule — since it is only bringing 
mind to take purely the sense of scripture and to 
act accordingly in honor of that supreme rule, with 
affectionate faith in the eternal testimony of God. 

To all professing christians, members of the 
church visible of the Redeemer, I would say — think 
of your high duty, to this charter of your hopes, 
this mirror of the divine glory, this development of 
infinite grace ! and hold it, not only, — but " hold it 
fast : — contend earnestly for the faith once delivered 
to the saints ; — striving together for the faith of the 
gospel." In one short epistle, Paul thrice enjoins it 
on the church, to maintain the truth of scriptural re- 
velation even against any members of their own body, 
baptized and regular professors, who should in any 
way occasionally dishonor it. He says, " Therefore, 
brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which 
ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epis- 



653 

tie." The " traditions " of inspired men, the apos- 
tles of the Lamb, it is orthodoxy itself to maintain ; 
as well as to resist all other traditions, as those of 
human invention and authority. " Now we com- 
mand you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every bro- 
ther that walketh disorderly, and not after the tra- 
dition which he received of us" We are here so- 
lemnly required to " withdraw " fellowship from 
such ! " And if any man obey not our word by this 
epistle, note that man, and have no company with 
him, that he may be ashamed." Is it then a lower 
rule than something in him! All these passages 
occur in 2 Thes. 2 : 15, and 3 : 6, 14. It is the 
pervading exhortation, and the most solemn injunc- 
tion of the whole word of God. Experience, rea- 
son, history, and the nature of the case, concur 
with all other sources of right influence known to 
us, to urge the momentous duty of guarding, in 
this hostile world, the invaluable deposit of the 
oracles of God ! — for ourselves, for our cotempora- 
ries, for our children, for our posterity, for eternity, 
and for the glory of their adorable Author ! guard- 
ing them in their unrivaled excellency ; in their ce- 
lestial fulness of grace and truth ; in their wonder- 
ful adaptation to the states and wants of fallen pro- 
bationary man ; in their absolute supremacy, on the 
principle that the word of God is the highest law 
in the universe, equally for saints and angels, in this 
world and that which is to come — and that the mere 
circumstance or incidental fact that his word to us 
is written, printed, contained identically in " the 



654 

holy scriptures ,"' only defines more steadfastly our 
duty, while it also facilitates its performance, "Who- 
soever therefore shall confess me before men, him 
will I confess also before my Father who is in hea- 
ven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him 
will I also deny before my Father who is in heaven," 



IOTE.S. 



1. Dr. Alexander's inaugural discourse. 

2, 3. Parents of the present Professor Douglass of the University of 
the city of New- York. 

4. My father died at thirty-four years of age, in the city of Phila- 
delphia; from which he had a few years before removed, and where he 
had recently arrived on business. I may be excused for transcribing in 
this place — for special reasons — an obituary that appeared in Foul- 
son's Daily Advertiser. It proceeded (I judge) from the pen of an ho- 
norable citizen of that metropolis, who well knew him, who is still alive, 
and whom his cotemporaries universally and justly esteem. 

"-. Died, 1st month, 4th, 1801, of an inflammation of the heart, James Cox, 
of Rahway, East New-Jersey. He left home about three weeks since, appa- 
rently in the enjoyment of vigorous health ; having possessed an excellent 
constitution, and lived in the habits of strict temperance. He seemed to 
have a peculiar claim to the attainment of old age : his prospects were bright 
and his conscience unsullied. He was in the prime of life; and blessed with 
a lovely wife and five small children, who, by his early and unexpected exit, 
are bereaved of an excellent husband and father. His mind was uncom- 
monly energetic, his heart warm and affectionate, and his principles sound 
and correct. His life was marked with valuable and manly traits of charac- 
ter, and his last moments were gilded with the serene hope and confidence 
of the Christian." 

5. As whose colleague the venerable Ashbel Green, D. D. LL. D. 
now in his seventy-first year, was ordained in April, 1787. 

6. The opposers of a female ministry, as all enlightened christians arc, 
in obedience to the plainly revealed will of God, are very far from deny- 
ing either that they are sisters in Christ Jesus, or that they arc endowed 
with very valuable gifts to be exercised in his service, or that there are 
appropriate spheres in which their talents and their virtues may shine 
together, with his reflected light and to his purest praise. If a christian 
lady has the talents of a Miriam, she need not have her usurpation too, 
Numb. 12, or incur her terrible rebuke, in arriving at distinguished 
usefulness. She need not become amazonian in order to be christian. 
In fact every private christian, of cither sex, may wisely occupy a 
place or improve an occasion, always to be found, of service to souls and 
of honor to God. " And a wise man's heart discerneth both time and 






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iiLi, ":_: — - 



7. 



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'. - Z SC'-ls 






657 

or whether they both shall be alike good." Eccles. 11:6. And what 
service possible to men, can for a moment be compared to this, for 
" glory, and honor, and immortality ;" or for certainty and richness of 
reward 1 The laurels and stars of vulgar ambition are here demon- 
strated puerile and contemptible ; while the grandeur and worth of such 
subserviency can be impoverished or reduced by no competition, nor by 
any increase or success of numbers. The cause is common, unique, 
eternal. The more the happier. Each contributes to the riches of all; 
and all rejoice in the successes of each. The tender female here be- 
comes a champion ; the contest and the victory alike exercise the good- 
ness and improve the character : Heaven is enjoyed and Christ is glo- 
rified in two worlds, one of them " without end!" 

The author is happy in the acquaintance of many excellent and 
" elect ladies " among Ms countrywomen, not restrictively those of his 
parochial G^iarge, whose example is luminous and beneficent in an emi- 
nent degree; and with whom, as living "epistles of Christ," and amia- 
ble specimens of the religion of his gospel, the unchanging principles of 
truth and grace, are discernible in their truly refining efficacy ; com- 
mended to the approbation of the world in kindred fellowship with the 
softness and the sympathy, the instinctive purity and the tender attrac- 
tion, of the female character. " A virtuous woman ; her price is far above 
rubies ! She openeth her mouth with wisdom ; and in her tongue is the 
law of kindness. Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain : but a woman 
that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised." Prov. 31 : 10, 26, 30. 

7. See Blackstone, vol. 1, pp. 301 and 441, et alia. 

8. " He thought he saw an unusual blaze of light fall on the book 
while he was reading, which he at first imagined might happen by some 
accident in the candle. But lifting up his eyes, he apprehended, to hia 
extreme amazement, that there was before him, as it were suspended in 
the air, a visible representation of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross, 
surrounded on all sides with a glory ; and was impressed, as if a voice, 
or something equivalent to a voice, had come to him, to this effect, (for 
he was not confident as to the very words,) O sinner, did I suffer this 

for thee, and are these the returns V Life of Col. Gardiner, by Dr. 
Doddridge, p. 25. The influence may be genuine, divine, saving; and 
yet our imagination and judgment may be erring and extravagant, in 
what they attribute to it. The luminous quality may be all in the 
mind, and the images or representations be there only delineated and 
enstamped. 

9. But this feeling of the preacher was not peculiar to him. Fox was 
the primate of their whole system of sympathies as well as sentiments. 
" I was moved also to cry against all sorts of music" — " But the black 

83 



658 

earthly spirit of the priests wounded my life : and when I heard the bell 
toll to call people together to the steeple-house, it struck at my life; for 
it was like a market-bell to gather people together, that the priest might 
set forth his ware to sale." Journal, vol. 1. pp. 114 and 115. In England, 
it is well known, that a steeple always indicates a church of the esta- 
blishment: the dissenters having none, according to law, and their 
places of worship being called chapels or meeting-houses. The antipa- 
thy of early Friends against "steeple- houses" became one of their cha- 
racteristics. It was a signal of the justly odious tithe system, and a re- 
membrancer of their own frequent amercement. 

10. This, and some other parts of this volume, were written as early 
as 1824 ; before the schism, and while its main occasion was yet alive. 
He is now no more in this world. Where he is, in that which is to 
come, I am very far from deciding even in the privacy of thought. God 
knows what to do, and will do what is gloriously right, with each one of 
us and with all men. In the text I mean only — that I am now relieved 
from any sensible obligation to account for his errors on the supposition 
of his genuine christian piety. Equally cautious would I be in resign- 
ing wholly and always, to the arbitration cf the Great God, the destiny 
of individuals or persons ; as courageous in the treatment of principles, 
whatever their application to myself or others, and in the confession of 
the truth, whatever the consequences to be apprehended. I desire here 
to assure the reader, that with me the idea of denouncing persons as 
absolutely graceless, or passing judgment on the eternal condition of 
any individual of the mighty congregation of the dead on whom scrip- 
ture hath not expressly passed the judgment of God, is both alien and 
awful ! I denounce only — a s}-stem. It is one of the most happy cogi- 
tations of my life, that I know not concretely or in reference to particu- 
lar individuals, who may not be pardoned and saved in spite of his errors 
and his sins ! or who may not be brought to repentance and faith in 
Christ, before he leaves the world ? There are several things in the 
characters of Fox and Barclay that I very sincerely respect and even 
admire — and far enough should I be from daring to say of either of 
them — He is lost forever ! No man knows any such tiling in fact ! and 
my soul is very very far from wishing it — I need not declare ! 

It was wise in one who said, to his circle of christian companions ; 
If any or all of us shall actually arrive in heaven at last, we shall see 
three wonders there -.first, many whom we never expected to meet 
there ; second, many not there whom we did expect to find ; and third, 
the greatest wonder to find — ourselves there ! 

In treating of truth and principles, however, I know not how to do 
justice to the subjects of revelation without free thought and unrestrain- 



659 

ed argument. If this wounds, lacerates, or even injures some, I can only- 
say — I know of no alternative ! truth will never surrender to error • and 
truth will hurt some spirits, and only hurt them, world without end! 

" The keen vibration of bright truth, is hell." The sword of the 
Spirit is sharp, refulgent, piercing. 

11. Remarkably characteristic and Quakerian ! I have often been 
asked by others, "How do they get over such and such passages?" 
Answer — You know nothing of their way, or you would not ask the in- 
apposite question. A man who carries about with him a light within 
which is paramount to reason and the oracles of God, can nullify at 
pleasure, and that as easily as by " turning over the leaf," whatever it 
may have pleased " the eternal Spirit " to reveal and record " for our 
learning." The confession, made in great simplicity, is a most important 
development. It reveals, I think, purely, what is more valuable because 
indeliberate, the character of the sect, the nature of their inward lumi- 
nary, and the connection that exists between their views and evidence. 
It shows the way which some have of pleading conscience, when they 
wish to escape responsibility or do what they dare not allow to be in- 
spected : and reminds me of an anecdote that I have somewhere 
known, of a certain miserable and ignorant man, who, having done a 
reprehensible action publicly in church, was arraigned for it before his 
ecclesiastical superiors, where he pleaded that he was conscientious in 
it all. " And pray," said one of his judges, " What is conscience ? or 
what do you mean by it, if you mean any thing or know what you 
mean?" He answered, "O yes! I know, very well. Conscience is 
something," putting his hand significantly on his stomach, " something 
down here that says, every now and then, I wont !" Humor apart, I 
sincerely suspect that Barclay's " little small thing" that " boasteth " such 
" great things," is not only resident in the same locality, but is very much 
of one identity with the famous definition of conscience above recited. 
It is the conscience of nullification — a principle that might, for aught 
I know, have " originated in heaven :" but sure I am it did not long 
remain there. 

12. Respecting predestination, without discussing a subject so exten- 
sive, so " sinned against" — not sinning, and so glorious and fundamental, 
I would affectionately suggest the following things: 1. It is both foolish 
and unfair to charge its alleged difficulties, as is often done in this coun- 
try, on presbyterianism or Calvinism. Before either of these existed, the 
very difficulties — which are wholly relative and result from our igno- 
rance and folly and unbelief alone — existed and were amply known. The 
premises of the doctrine are fully contained in Barclay's Apology: since 
they are ultimately resolvable into the attributes of the infinite God. 



660 

Omniscience — who can deny? — eternally knows all things, and antici- 
pates them infallibly, in a system over which God presides, which he 
created and constantly upholds. For " although in relation to the fore- 
knowledge and decree ::" God, the first cause, all things come to pass 
imme.:::;; and infallibly, yet, by the same providence, he ordereth 

:: fall nit according to the nalme of second causes, either neces- 
-. freely, or contingently." Presbyterian Confession of Faith. Chap. 
5. sec:, 2. IS'o absolute contingency exisis j ye: all relative contingen- 
cies, such to us, (and the world is full of them.) are infallibly and econo- 

ly foreknown in the system, and mcst wisely ordered and over- 
: by the eternal Owner of all things. The means and the end of 
ever." reiatei series are reciprocally connected and mutually dependant 
in the constitution of God. He has no purpose, for example, to fill a 
barn with the fruits of autumn, that does not as well imply his purpose 
of antecedent toil, forecast perseverance, care, and skill, on the part of 
he bosbanrtmaii. A correct view of this subject is not only noble and 

: ; ical ex; : .i: s ive to the mind and salutary in an infinite degree 
:: the heart ; :::. it rectifies the conduct, is the best core of the natural 
:: men. the wi se~: : : n 2 : i.ve in the world of the whole doctrine 
::~'z:e, and moreover — it is eternal truth | God knows all events, with 
just as much precision and sxactitoxle, and knows them just as histori- 
cally, as he knows those of yesterday and earlier in infinite pretention. 
He knowe yon, reader, and all your voluntary conduct, perfectly and from 
everlasting. It is indeed to me a wonder of difficult solution (much 
more difficult than the revealed doctrine of predestinauon) that any 
man ::" senee and honesty can at once believe the Bible, and read it, 
If not contained in Rom? 11. nor in 

ivaiis. 1. 2. I am sore it is to be found almost evert where else. 

ss.y or by implication,, in the whole Bible. If somewhat medi- 
cinal and painful, it is still a most salutary doctrine. 2. Our moral 
relation to it is simple, encouraging and ENTIRELY PRACTI- 
CAL — whence our duty is to submit to it believingly and to believe it 
affect nately : the gl c :y of the eternal and infinitely benevolent Foun- 
der of the system. To do this, is just as easy as it is to love God or 
cordially to say. • Ti:y will be done/" "Without such unqualified sub- 
mission, we are, however disguised, only the enemies of God — because 
we wickedly choose to be ! With it — we are his friends, his children, 
his elect for ever. The doctrine can be easily abused, however, by any 
one so minded. Hence 3. There is no proper difficulty practically, or 
io the doctrine. If we can love God sincerely at all why 
r him because of the infinite sovereignty in which he describes him- 
self as B declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times 
the things that are not yet dene, raying, My c:u>"sel shall stand 



661 

and I will do all my plkasdre." Isaiah, 46 : 10. Shall we hate him for 
being infinitely wise and good in governing the universe? 

4. If it be said — Then he makes some men on purpose to damn them i 
I answer, (1) This is no logical result from the premises. It is more- 
over an averment of guilt and blasphemy, when absolutely uttered. 
He made all men for his own glory and the good of the universe : and 
this end he is most wisely determined that they shall in some way sub- 
serve— either in their punishment or pardon, according to their own 
moral agency in this world. Gal. 6 : 7, 8. He might know a thing and 
order it in the system, without at all making it an end desired. He 
knew from everlasting that Paul would persecute the church; and eter- 
nally ordained the system in which it should occur : was that the end 
for which he created him? (2) The difficulty, if it be one, is just as 
great — to say the least — with those who deny the doctrine and are not 
universalis. The God whom they profess to worship, created the 
finally reprobate knowing infallibly that they would be lost forever. 
Did He create them for this end — or, for no end — or, to confound him- 
self? (3) Election, as a branch of predestination, damns nobody; it 
only insures the piety and salvation of an innumerable multitude. If you 
say, why are so many lost or left to their own way, which is at last the 
same thing? I reply — The question is based on facts which all must 
admit in common, namely, that many do perish. The reason is two- 
fold; first, touching their agency; their own wanton wickedness is 
the reason. Second, touching the agency of God— why does he not 
interpose preventively and save them ? Answer — Because he cannot in 
wisdom and righteousness ! because he sees it better to punish some for 
their iniquity than that he should exert such an agency in the circum- 
stances. It is not because he could not do it absolutely ; but because he 
could not do it morally. In this important sense we may say, God 
saves as many as he can; and would doubtless save all if he 
did not see that it was preferable for his infinite benevolence 
to punish some, and as few as possible, for the gqod of the uni- 
verse of being forevermore ! God is Love. 

13. Now under the pastoral care of my spiritual cotemporary, my early 
and excellent friend, Rev. Philip Cortlandt Hay, A. M. 

14. I was regularly " disowned" on my birth day, (after a respite of six 
months, in which they neither said nor wrote anything to me,) accord- 
ing to their laws in such cases made and provided. A certified copy of 
disownment was sent me, which I received and kept for several years, 
but which is now mislaid. I can recollect, however, and shall endeavor 
to transcribe it (not with perfect exactness) from memory. 

Whereas, Samuel H. Cox, had a birth-right membership among us ; 



662 

but, having joined another religious society, we therefore testify our dis- 
union with him : but desire, nevertheless, that by the clear inshining of 
divine light, he may come to know the voice of the true Shepherd and 
thereby experience preservation from the snares of the enemy of all good. 
Signed in and on behalf of the Pine-street Monthly Meeting. 
Philad. Aug. 25, 1813. , Clerk. 

On this I remark, 

(1.) That thus far I have had no inshining; (their own word,) " clear " 
or otherwise, that does not confirm my conviction that their system is 
illusory and wrong. 

(2.) That their charitable insinuation sagainst the whole presbyterian 
denomination, when they speak of " the true Shepherd," and " the 
snares of the enemy of all good," are quite comprehensible. 

(3.) That I do not reprehend or at all regret the fact that they have 
" disowned " me ; I first and conscientiously disowned them : but I have 
often asked myself why, in the times of worldly foolery, when they knew, 
(their preachers, I mean,) that I and hundreds of others of their youth 
were habituated to attend the theatre and to follow other godless prac- 
tices, why did they not then " disown " or even "deal with " me? The 
only unpardonable offence I have committed was — to believe the Bible 
with some degree of practical consistency I My soul's most ardent be- 
nevolence prays that they may come to the same experience; thus 
"knowing the voice of the true Shepherd," and realizing "preservation 
from the snares of" Quakerism. And that " by the clear inshining of 
the divine light " of outward scripture testimony ! May the God of all 
grace bring them to taste his salvation in Christ Jesus ! I feel compassion 
for them, abhorrence only of their system, and anguish of heart on their 
account : but so far as I know my own heart in the sight of God, I can 
aver that I am very far from any vindictive feelings toward them— 
whatever I sometimes think of their manner of treating me. 

Jesus ! have mercy on my soul, 

And give me grace to do thy will: 
Keep me in truth's divine control 

And be my God and Savior still ! 

15. This is hating human nature. 

16. Cardinal lie. 

17. Though it is revolting to the feelings of real piety and disgusting 
to all enlightened sense, even to peruse his infatuated " Journal" of 
vanities, I will here append only a specimen, of hundreds that might 
easily be furnished. " Now was I come up in Spirit, through the flam- 
ing sword, into the paradise of God. All things were new ; and all the 
creation gave another smell unto me than before, beyond what words 



663 

can utter. I knew nothing bdt pureness, innocency, and righteous- 
ness, BEING RENEWED UP INTO THE IMAGE OF GOD BY CHRIST JESUS ; SO 
THAT I WAS COME UP TO THE STATE OF ADAM, WHICH HE WAS IN BEFORE 

he fell." Vol. I. p. 104. Far enough beyond any saint or apostle of 
whom we have scriptural memorial. Paul was nothing to him ! And 
his ministerial influence was equally pre-eminent. When he spake, he 
says, " The Lord's power came over them. Yea, the Lord's everlasting 
power was over the world, and reached to the hearts of people, and made 
both priests and professors tremble. It shook the earthly and airy spirit, 
in which they held their profession of religion and worship ; so that it 
was a dreadful thing to them, when it was told them, ' The man in 
leathern breeches is come.' At the hearing thereof the priests in many 
places got out of the way; they were so struck with the dread of the 
eternal power of God ; and fear surprised the hypocrites." Vol. I. p. 158. 
I should think that other causes, than depravity and a reprobate con- 
sciousness, might account for their aversation to an interview with such 
a column of light ! 

O why were people made so coarse ; 

Or clergy made so fine ? 
A kick that scarce could move a horse 
Would kill a sound divine .' Cowper. O 3 Prov. 26 : 5. 

19.* An intelligent and respected ministerial brother, whom I thank for 
his kindness, has lately put in my hands a volume entitled, " The society 

of Friends vindicated ; being the arguments of the counsel of J 

H , in a cause decided in the court of chancery of the state of New 

Jersey, between T L S complainant, and J H 

and S D , defendants. By George Wood and Isaac H. 

Williamson, counsellors at law. To which is appended the decision of 
the court. Trenton, N. J. 1832." Of this interesting volume, I would 
remark, 

(1.) That it can be held to decide nothing theologically, or next to no- 
thing; since the object of the court was not to determine what doctrines 
were true absolutely, but only the doctrines in point of fact held respec- 
tively by the parties litigant. 

(2.) That the process and the result of that singular trial (as it once 
would have been counted) have been evidently wise and luminous and 
right, touching the questions then pending. Of this I have no doubt. 
But it is secular in the main ; and leaves the society unvindicated in those 
high spiritual relations, where christian philosophy will not cease to 
compare Quakerism as a whole, with " the secondary rule " of Chris- 
tianity as a whole ! 

* Some confusion has occurred in the text, in numbering tho notes; there is no 18, nnd CO 
occurs twieo; hence the pago will be specified to which each of those refcrs-this to png<W>4. 



664 

(5.) That the Hicksites there refused to show what their doctrines were, 
and so joined no issue on the theology of the dispute ; which was plainly 
subordinate to the matters of " bend and mortgage/' " principal and 
interest." 

(4.) That the unitarian hicksism of Penn. appears to have laid palpably 
in the orbit of one of the counsellors cf the other party, and to have tasked. 
as well as taxed, his erudite ingenuity toulispose of it. p. 24. and on- 
ward. He admits however that his writings have, not first recently 
,; subjected him to the charge of socinianism and sometimes of unquali- 
fied infidelity :" and though he wittily refers this to " the want of at- 
tending sufficiently to the drift of the author." yet I must beg leave to 
express a conviction precisely opposite to the learned advocate ; and as- 
sert that the impartial inquirer, vrho reads the writings of Penn so as 
to come most intelligently into a the drift of the author." and who has 
read as well and on the same principles ;; the Holy Scriptures/ 5 is the 
very man of a thousand who will soonest discard his pretensions as a 
christian teacher, and deny his soundness in the faith, whatever honor 
he may accord to his established fame as a man. and a general philan- 
thropist, and the lauded founder of a noble one of the confederate states 
of this mighty republic. 

19. p. 96. Opposition to the cause of missions. 

20. p. 101. In so many words. 

21. With all their might and mam. 

22. Let dotage accredit his pretentions; I cannot. 

23. This is probably a clew to the true meaning of that much ob- 
scured, controverted, and certainly difficult passage. Rom. 9 : 1-3. I 
will give simply the result of some pains-taking, and 'show mine opi- 
nion/ as to its proper meaning : thus; ;: I say the truth in Christ, and 
lie not. my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I 
have great heaviness and continued sorrow in my heart (for I myself 
was wishing [or glorying] to be accursed from Christ) for my breth- 
ren, my kinsmen according to the flesh ; who are Israelites." &c. 

This version is grammatical and almost literal. It is the only one 
that I have ever seen against which insuperable objections do not lie. 
The asseveration of the apostle ill comports with the supposition of a gross- 
ly extravagant and utterly unheard of hyperbole cr poetical oriental- 
ism : as it were madly and officiously conditionating his own eternal 
damnation as the price of the salvation of his countrymen, and thus en- 
tirely transcending the ;; unspeakable-' love manifested in the cross of 
Christ ! Absurd too, as the fancy of papists and universalists that 
hell-fire is a capital means of grace. The Jews hated Paul for deny- 



665 

ing their doctrine, their doings, and their hopes : they would not easily 
believe any thing he could say, avouching his sincere and tender bene- 
volence toward their spiritual interests. Hence he assumes the solemn 
sanction of an appeal to the witnessing God; he panegyrizes their na- 
tional eminence and relative dignity : and accounts most naturally for 
his peculiar feelings toward them, from the fact that he was their kins- 
man, that he had been one of them, that he formerly gloried to act as 
they were acting ; as madly, as desperately, as if practically or con- 
structively glorying in the cause ! 



25. And from one error learn them all. 

26. It is rather surprising to see certain limilarians sometimes arro- 
gate to themselves, at least by implication, the honor of exclusive Cal- 
vinism, as well as exclusive orthodoxy. They are certainly in an error 
there, if what Calvin believed and taught may be viewed as the crite- 
rion of what Calvinism is. In his institutes of the christian reli- 
gion, written (when about 25 years of age) in his theological youth, 
although they were less express on the point than his subsequent writ- 
ings, I recollect no sentence which determines any thing in favor of re- 
strictive views of the nature of atonement. In his commentary, which 
was his maturer work and the rich mine whence many modern writers 
have taken their second-hand wisdom, and which has never (so far as I 
know) been rendered into English and published, his sentiments are 
full, frequent, conclusive, in favor of a full atonement. It may be well 
to transcribe a few of these. I could easily give more. 

1 John, 2 : 2, where Christ is said to be " the propitiation — for the 
sins of the whole world." Calvin says indeed that " he would not stoop 
to answer the ravings of those who hence declare all the reprobate and 
even the devil himself to be the ultimate subjects of salvation. A po- 
sition so monstrous deserves no refutation. But others, who have no 
such purpose, affirm that Christ suffered sufficiently for all men ; but 
efficiently for the elect alone. And this solution of the matter is com- 
monly received in the schools. I question however its relevancy to' the 
present passage, while I confess its absolute truth." Hence (1) Calvin 
believed the fulness of the atonement, and made it a part of his chris- 
tian confession. (2) Just as obviously is it no modern speculation ; since 
it had obtained in the schools of protestant orthodoxy, even commonly, 
three hundred years ago. I subjoin his own words. Sed hie movetur 
quaestio, quomodo mundi totius peccata expientur. Omitto phrenetico- 
rum deliria, qui hoc praetextu reprobca omncs, adcoque Satanam 
ipsum in salutem admittunt: tale portentum refutatione indignum est. 
Qui hane absurditatem volebant effugere, dixerunt ; Sufficients pro 

54 



666 

toto mundo passum esse Christum : sed pro electis tantum efficaciter 
Vulgo haec solutio in scholis obtinuit. Ego quanquam verum esse 
illud dictum fateor ; nego tamen praesenti loco quadrare. 

2 Pet. 2:1. " Even denying the Lord that bought them." He says — 
"those therefore who, despising restraint, have abandoned themselves 
to all licentiousness, are deservedly said to deny Christ by whom they 
were redeemed. Moreover, that the doctrine of the gospel may remain 
safe and entire in our hands, let us fix it in our minds that we have been 
redeemed by Christ to this very end — that he may be at once the Lord 
of our life and our death : and so let us propose to ourselves this end, 
that to him we may live, and to him we may die." His words are — 
Q,ui igitur excusso freno in omnem licentiam se projiciunt, non immerito 
dicuntur Christum abnegare a quo redempti sunt. Proinde ut salva et 
integra evangelii doctrina apud nos maneat, hoc animis nostris inflxum 
sit, redemptos esse nos a Christo ut vitae simul et mortis nostrae sit Domi- 
nus : itaque nobis hunc finem esse propositum ut illi vivamus ac mori- 
amur. 

Rom. 5 : 18. " Therefore, as by one offence [sentence came] upon 
all men unto condemnation, so by the righteousness of one [sentence 
came] upon all men unto justification of life." Stuart's translation. Cal- 
vin says, " The apostle here makes it the common grace of all, because 
to all it is exhibited, though to all it is not realized in eventual fact. 
For although Christ suffered for the sins of the whole world, and to all 
without discrimination is he offered by the benignity of God, yet all 
men do not apprehend him." His words are — Communem omnium 
gratiam facit, quia omnibus exposita est, non quod ad omnes extenda- 
tur re ipsa : nam etsi passus est Christus pro peccatis totius mundi, 
atque omnibus indiflerenter Dei benignitate^offertur, non tamen omnes 
apprehendunt. 

Matt. 26 : 28. " For this is my blood of the new testament, [covenant,] 
which is shed for many for the remission of sins." He says, "Under the 
word many Jesus Christ designates not a part of the world only, but 
the total human race. Therefore, when we approach the table of the 
Lord, not only should this general thought occur to our mind, that the 
world has been redeemed by the blood of Christ, but each for himself 
ought to consider that his own sins have been expiated." I give his 
words. Sub multorum nomine non partem mundi tantum designat, 
Bed totum humanum genus. Ergo dum ad suam mensam accedimus, 
non solum haec generalis cogitatio in mentem veniat, 'redemptum Christi 
sanguine esse mundum ♦, sed pro se quisque reputet peccata sua expiata 
esse. 

In modern technology (which I approve) they only are said to be 
redeemed who are actually accepted in Christ : for all, atonement is 



667 

made ; to all, is it offered ; the Spirit striving through the truth as ex- 
tensively, as the sufficiency and applicability of the atonement are exten . 
sive. Still, to accept the offer and correspond with the offerer, is, in the 
very nature of things, the only way to be saved. Are all men saved % 
Yes — if all repent and believe the gospel ! Do they this 1 He that 
believes men are saved in sin, or that all men renounce it, must have 
very strong faith ! We however do not believe that the atonement 
was indefinite in the sense of the Remonstrants of Holland or any 
other Arminians. God had a design in making it, which no event 
should frustrate. Christ eternally designed the salvation of the elect j 
and for these, in this sense exclusively, he gave his precious life. But 
this makes not the atonement less full, or alters its nature at all. When 
the elect are all brought to piety and heaven, by supposition, the 
others — whoever they are — have just as good an opportunity every way 
to realize the same blessedness, as all the world have on the theory that 
denies election. Election is one thing, atonement another. Election is 
all gain and no loss — and the reverse precisely is true of the error that 
denies election. See John, 6 : 36-40, 44, 65. 10 : 11, 15, 26-30. 17 : 2. 
Eph. 5 : 25-27. Rev. 17 : 8. Matt. 25 : 34. Rom. 9 : 29. 

27. This same one, as I have heard, once attended a funeral at the 
house of a pious Methodist, as no other minister could be procured. As 
he sat colioqually preaching to a circle in the room, he soon glided into 
his favorite strain of vituperation against the " hirelings or divines as 
they call themselves." He concluded by warning his hearers to be- 
ware of them. "Yea," said he with an oracular whine, " beware of the 
scribes and pharisees, hypocrites." Rejoined a venerable old Metho- 
dist, " yes, my friends, and I think you ought also to beware of the 
Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection." 

28. Such a custom is most pernicious — a gratuitous kind of protestant 
canonizing' of the dead, against which christians ought to show them- 
selves decisive protestants ; and blame not the Quakers alone, 

De mortuisnil nisi bonum, 'tis said: 
Say nothing but good of the men that are dead. 
More christian the adage if thus it had come- 
Say truth or say nothing, no matter of whom I 

It is a common and most perverse error. Men are often blessed and 
sainted at death, in a style flatly infidel and plainly false. " The dead 
that die in the Lord," and no others, does "the Spirit" order to be 
written " blessed :" and we know of but one way of dying in the Lord — 
and that is, the way of living in the Lord ! Let a man pass this divine 



668 

limit, and he has lost all rule, certainty, truth : and so far as his malign 
power extends, he will deceive credulous multitudes with the hope of 
rottenness that rushes to ruin. In the words of a forgotten author, 

Turk, Jew, and Papist, 
Infidel and Atheist; 
Might all enter in, 
With scorn and with sin ; 
If such graceless trust 
Gets part with the just. 

29. Let every one keep to his own vocation. 

30. The strict and tree exegesis of this passage is difficult, and has 
been critically controverted. It is here used in its ordinary and popular 
acceptation. The moral, however, is much the same, whatever view 
we adopt. Possibly : ' the Spirit" is to be taken in a good sense, for the 
grace of the Spirit of God inhabiting the mind of the christian. On 
that hypothesis, which seems to me probable at least, it ought to be ren- 
dered in pans as two questions, and not one merely; thus, u Think ye 
that the scripture testifieth falsely ? Is it to envy (or malice) that the 
Spirit persuadeth. that hath taken up his abode in us V' m 

31. Conscious rectitude. 

32. The subject of original sin is often regarded, too grossly, or with- 
out due concessions and discriminations, as a cardinal point, on which if 
a brother comes not to my views and phrases, I am at liberty and at 
duty too in denounciation or impeachment. On this important article, 
I would remark. 

1. That there are difficulties in tne philosophy or metaphysics of it, 
which it is either not easy or not possible to resolve ; and which are al- 
most equally great on every theory that does not utterly deny the doc- 
trine — which were an alternative of much more and greater difficulties ! 
We ought perhaps to be modest and forbearing toward others — espe- 
cially till we can show (1) precisely when the soul begins to exist, that is 
to endure forever ? (2) precisely when the subject becomes a moral 
agent ? (3) precisely how it is affected by the sin of Adam, whenever 
it commences the perpetration of its own? and (4) precisely how we are 
metaphysically to reconcile the facts ascertained, with all the known 
principles of the divine moral government and the certainly revealed 
doctrines of the mediatorial economy ? Surely here is some ■'■' debateable 
ground :" and debateable it will long remain ! Xor can I see whv we 
may not differ and debate in such aspects, without disturbing " the "bond 
of peace," and without specially marring ;: the unity of the Spirit." 



Only I believe that to settle such questions is about as impossible as to 
attempt it is ordinarily useless. The difficulties are metaphysical alone — 
not practical, I take it. They respect modes more than facts. 

2. Without using any of the many technicalities that have obtained, 
J would impeach or doubt the soundness of no brother who should give 
evidence of intelligent and honest faith in the substance of the following 
propositions : 

(1) That the whole species are'morally fallen and sinful ; " by nature 
children of wrath " and destitute of all conformity to the law of God. 

(2) That this condition results, in the grand economy of things, from 
the sin of our first parents ; so that their sin was quasi ours, was in effect 
ours, was in certain consequence the sin and ruin of human nature ; so 
that angels, could they have known the future historical relations of the 
matter, would have wisely and well exclaimed ; " man is ruined, is 
fallen, is lost;" grouping the whole species in the dire catastrophe. 

(3) That depravity, or personal wickedness in some form, commences 
whenever moral action commences ; and this in every instance of our 
moral history. 

(4) That no memoer of the race, old or young, can be in fact saved 
in any other way than that of " the common salvation," or as all others 
are, through the grace and mediation of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

I have some special reasons (with^/we dear infants — I trust — in glory, 
of whom the oldest was not as many years of age) to feel and love the 
doctrine or implication of the fourth proposition; which however I have 
neither made nor modified since their tenderly remembered exit — when 
I gave them cheerfully and tearfully back to the hands of Jesus Christ ! 

3. There are questions and facts unresolved, on this article of " the 
common faith," which embarrass, really, if not equally, every theory 
that was ever soberly framed for its elucidation: such as these — Have 
idiots souls ? What becomes of them ? and monstesr, what of them ? And 
so of millions of unborn children, of dead-born, of destroyed embryos, 
&c. Were all these represented in Adam ? how are they related to 
him — how to Christ ? Where there is no evidence, we had better have 
no theory. The scripture is often eloquent in its omissions. If, for ex- 
ample, it had affirmed the salvation of all infants, or any class of them, 
under a certain age, the consequences had been terrible ! What fears 
for those who should die ever so little past that age! What tempta- 
tions to infanticide under it, especially to guilty parents ! What vain 
repinings and murmuring??, among some, that they did not die earlier ! 
How were the value of life cheapened, and a due preparation for death 
obstructed and postponed ! These difficulties are not properly the opprobria 
theologiae — they are only " the secret things that belong to God." All 
the principles on the topic which we need to know and thoroughly to 



670 

digest as theologians, seem to be contained correlatively in the eigh- 
teenth and thirty-third chapters of Ezekiel, the fifth of Romans, theirs* 
three of Genesis. But — hie labor, hoc opus est. 

4. The definition of original sin contained in the Institutes of Calvin, 
popular rather than philosophical or metaphysical though it be, is not 
very objectionable, I should think, to any soundly thinking theologian ; 
especially as explained in the second quotation below : Videtur ergo pec- 
catum originale haereditaria naturae nostrae pravitas et corruptio, in 
omnes animae partes diffusa : quae primum facit reos irae Dei, turn 
etiam opera in nobis profert, quae scriptura vocat opera carnis. — Xeque 
ista est alieni delicti obligatio; quod enim dicitur, nos per Adae pec- 
catum obnoxios esse factos Dei judicio : non ita est accipiendum, acsi 
insontes ipsi et immerentes culpam delicti ejus sustinerimus ; sed quia 
per ejus tra.nsgressionem maledictione induti sumus omnes, dicitur ille 
nos obstrinxisse. Ab illo tamen non sola in nos poena grassata est, sed 
instillata ab illo lues in nobis residet, cui jure poena debetur. 

Not a bad definition for three hundred years ago, and by a young 
man who had lived just the fourth of a century. Contrary to my 
first purpose, I venture to translate it : I say venture, because some 
may question any rendering as to the exact sense conveyed. " Original 
sin therefore appears to be the hereditary pravity and corruption of our 
nature, diffused through all parts of the soul ; which renders us primarily 
liable to the wrath of God, and then produces in us those works which 
are called in scripture " the works of the flesh." This bond to punish- 
ment however is not for the sin of another ; for, when it is said that we 
are by the sin of Adam rendered obnoxious to the judgment of God, it 
is not so to be taken, as if we, being innocent and without all personal 
ill-desert, were necessitated to suffer the blame of his defection : but, as 
by means of his transgression, we are all indued with the malediction, 
he is said to have devolved it on us. By him however not the penalty 
alone hath overwhelmed us : for. by him instilled the moral mischief 
inhabits us. which is on its own account justly deserving of the penalty." 
I have given his words baldly in English, where I could ; and I need not 
say that the sense is rendered with an honest aim, at least. My original 
design in quoting Calvin here, was simply to supply those who cared 
for it, with his own definition in his own words. Since writing all the 
above, I have compared the translation, with the more easy and familiar 
one of Allen, and see no reason to alter it. 

I have no sympathy with those hyper-orthodox — whoever they are— 
who assume that they know (what God alone knows) precisely when 
the soul commences ; and precisely when moral agency begins. I know 
that they k?iow nothing about it ; and that more knowledge or more 
candor would bring them to own, as many of the noblest living chief- 



671 

tains of the truth have done, their utter ignorance on such obscure 
points of metaphysical uncertainty — instead of presumptuously deciding, 
and even erecting them into cardinal and rallying points of 'party or- 
thodoxy. 

It is indeed impossible for me not to distinguish between physical de- 
pravity, and that which is moral in its proper nature : and hence by lues 
I interpret that excellent reformer to mean, moral evil with its conse- 
quent misery and exposure. And according to his own definition and 
the very reasoning of President Edwards, God, in the day of judgment, 
will charge individuals with their personal sinfulness and with this alone 
respectively, in the light of his own spiritual eternal law ; condemning 
the wicked and pardoning, through Christ, the good, according to the 
measure of that unalterable standard. 

5. A denial de facto of this doctrine ought to be matter of offence to 
the whole church of God, no matter who broaches or advocates the op- 
posing heresy. To say that men are by nature pure and innocent, is 
abominable ignorance and infidel error. To say that their sin is merely 
incidental, owing to circumstances or evil example or education or ne- 
glect, and might be prevented by pious prophylactic care, is the very 
sum and substance of pelagianism — a fundamental heresy ! On this 
article of faith Friends are mystical, evasive, ignorant, false ; as Fox 
denies what he calls " the entail of sin," and charges " the hireling 
priests," with defending and advocating sin itself; because they merely 
maintained the true doctrine against his heresy, that denies original sin 
in toto and affirms the infatuated conceit of sinless perfection attained 
in the present life. Barclay says that we are involved (in some incon- 
ceivable style) in the fall of Adam; " nevertheless, this seed [of depra- 
vity] is not imputed to infants until by transgression they actually join 
themselves therewith." Those who misunderstand either the malady or 
the remedy of our fallen condition, ordinarily misunderstand both; and 
discern not the glorious symmetry of the scheme of redemption. God 
imputes to us all the sin we have and all the seeds of it, in every case, 
and continually, till we are pardoned and justified in Christ Jesus. The 
lues is the sin itself: and sin is — sin, universally ; and this when par- 
doned as really as when punished. 

33. This proposition would be comparatively unobjectionable, if tho 
sacred name were superseded by that of the arch enemy. 

34. Q,uere — Is there any inward testimony of the scriptures. 

35. Of which the plain English version is — That any ignoramus, of 
either sex, may preach, any where and at anytime, under internal in- 
fluence and responsibility alone. See 21, Infra. This is pretty large 
license. Learning, knowledge, probation, and order, arc not quite ca- 



672 

iionical. The avalanche of inspiration clears the way for itself, by its 
own momentum, wherever it comes. It scorns to be anticipated by out- 
ward light of any sort; and it can be read and remembered afterward, 
mainly from the records of desolation which its own fury makes in the 
formidable rush ! It seems not improper to remark that the very history 
of Friends demonstrates the opposite of their creed on this article. Their 
worst influences have emanated from their most ignorant pretenders ; 
their respectability, from the labors of the more intelligent and the better 
educated. This may be seen as a criterion-principle in the schism. With 
few exceptions the informed and cultivated went one way ; the igno- 
rant and intractable, the other. Nor do I think it wrong to record that 
the heresiarch who led the latter class was a grossly illiterate and ig- 
norant man j and touching his intellectual character, as sublimely ele- 
vated in his own imagination, as he was compassionated by all compe- 
tent judges. I have heard him preach twice, conversed with him often, 
and corresponded on several occasions. I have three letters of his now 
in my possession, which fully warrant these reflections ; as sordid and 
vicious in their literature, as false and treacherous in their doctrinal po- 
sitions. " That the soul be without knowledge, it is not good." Pro v. 19 : 
2. What kind of inspiration is it that makes ignorance almost a neces- 
sary qualification for the ministry? 

36. This is an article which, though fundamental to Quakerism, is 
not carefully protruded, or zealously pressed into public view, by mo- 
dern Friends. What is its bearing on the piety or profession of all other 
denominations 1 It explodes all others, quite as perfectly as this pub- 
lication denounces Quakerism. It is however theoretically, practically, 
continually, in the very heart of their system. The result is that prayer — 
except in instances " few and far between " of apprehended motion, 
" the inward and immediate moving and drawing of his own Spirit," 
prayer is almost wholly omitted by Friends ; as it never can be statedly 
performed, in the closet, the family, or the meeting! This is fact, they 
know ! Very few families notoriously have any domestic worship or re- 
ligious order in them, they know ! They must always " get still," and 
wait in silence for a motion, (which often comes not,) and feel*its inspi- 
ration in full glow, before they worship at all. This is horrible delu- 
sion and wholly anti-christian. Luke, 18 : 1-14, and especially, 1. 
I will put a case — such as occurs in substance'often in the life of every 
individual and occurs even ordinarily, where " man's extremity becomes) 
God's opportunity :" suppose a passenger in a ship at sea should fall 
astern overboard, and swimming " with heart of controversy " should 
see the vessel glide diminished on her way, evidently ignorant of his 
condition. It remains for him — to die and sink in the vast sepulchre of 
waters alone. But his strength will last some moments or minutes. 



673 

—Shall he pray or not 1 If he were to invoke the great God, by the faith 
of Jesus Christ, and pray for mercy and salvation for his name's sake 
" coming boldly to the throne of grace " accessible then and in every 
other " time of need," and entreat for " grace to help " him • would it 
be " abominable idolatry " and so forth, "to be denied, rejected, and 
separated from, in this day of his spiritual arising?" Is it " will-worship " 
or " superstition ?" O yes ! for Barclay's " eleventh proposition " or 
thesis says that " all other worship," and especially " prayers con- 
ceived extemporarily," are in this condemnation. This is impiously nul- 
lifying the revealed system of the grace of God ; and needs only to be 
universally and consistently believed, to banish true worship from the 
world. 

37. I wonder if they ever attentively study such a valuable work as 
the treatise, by the present excellent Bishop Wilson of Calcutta, on 
" the divine authority and perpetual obligation of the Lord's day ?" or 
Dick's philosophy of religion ? or Dwight's five sermons on the fourth 
commandment ? 

38. From the third cardinal numeral, tres, is formed, trinus; and 
thence, trinitas ; (as unitas from unus or universitas from uni versus ;) 
I judge ; without the word unus as an etymon of its composition ; though 
Dr. Webster and others think differently. 

39. To subdue the proud. 

40. As if in independent or absolute possession — for the time. 

41. Some are so conscientious or consistent that they never vote; 
viewing it as unlawful for them and for all men. 

42. The last argument — 

43. — of kings — 

44. — of laws. 

45. A great Preacher once said thus to me, and refused every an- 
swer but his own. 

46. For our altars and firesides. 

47. Some may suppose that the author has had sufficient time or 
leisure, in which to give his work the last and the best touches of cor- 
rection. The facts are otherwise. While contemplation on the topics 
involved has been long habituated, leisure he scarcely knows : and most 
of this volume has been written at intervals and fragments of time, in 
the last four months of the year 1832. A large parochial charge, in 
such a proverbially busij city as that of his residence, may convince 

85 



674 

any thoughtful person, in some small degree, of the impossibility that -he 
should prepare a work, such as, in other circumstances, might seem 
comparatively worthy of public approbation. No part of it has been 
re-written for the press ; except as the manuscripts were indebted to 
notes incidentally taken through previous years. In the near approach 
(as it seemed) of eternity, toward the end of July last, when the cho- 
lera was upon him, the thought that death might supervene before the 
purpose of publication was executed, determined him, if spared and pros- 
pered to recover, to " perform the doing of it " as soon as practicable. 
It has cost him, with reduced strength, some effort, made often when 
others were sleeping ; and without any intermission of his public du- 
ties. He repeats the declaration that it aspires to no superiority on the 
score of fine writing ; being too sensible of its real defects and those of 
its author to indulge such a vanity. In regard to manner, if due allow- 
ance be accorded him, the graver questions, touching the matter of 
the performance, may find a wiser tribunal and a more candid audit, as 
well as an equitable decision, at the court of public sentiment — from 
which, however, the christian knows, when he needs it, to what higher 
judicatory he may carry his ultimate appeal. 

48. Sometimes two at once — both inspired ! Of this I have often 
heard, and have myself once seen it. The result on that occasion, when 
a man and woman rose at different ends of their " gallery " or long 
continuous pulpit, was (if I rightly remember) that the man, pausing 
longer, heard the voice of his supplantress about 50 feet to his left, (in 
Arch-street meeting,) at which he was startled, looked at her, and then 
composedly sat down till that head feminine of the whole assembly, 
that female "master of assemblies" was done! Their commission to 
"usurp authority" of this sort will be investigated hereafter. 

49. See summary of their doctrine, &c. "written at the desire of the 
meeting for sufferings in London 1800 " appended to Mosheim, New- 
York edition, 1821. 

50. A proud a priori argument, which, though abstractly true, inas- 
much as it is evident that no contradiction can proceed from the Holy 
Ghost ; yet, in reference to the assumed matters of fact connected with 
the inspiration of Friends, it is destitute of all evidence and truth : for, 
the question to be tried is not the consistency of the Eternal Spirit in 
all his genuine revelations, which none but an atheist can deny ; but 
whether Friends are in fact thus inspired! " Try the Spirits." 

"Moreover, these divine inward revelations, which we make absolutely 
necessary for the building up of true faith, neither do nor can ever 
contradict the outward testimony of the scriptures, or right and sound 
reason. Yet from hence it will not follow that these divine revelations 



675 

are to be subjected to the examination either of the outward testimony 
of the scriptures, or of the natural reason of man." — Barclay. 

According to this it is plain, 1. That the deniers (and I am one of 
them) of " these divine inward revelations " are all destitute of the 
grace of God, because destitute of that which is " absolutely necessary 
to true faith." 2. That all such will be lost ; for, " he that believeth 
not shall be damned." 3. That we are required to believe the vaunted 
fact that Friends are thus inspired without any evidence. 4. That 
we are required to believe this alleged fact without any scrutiny ; for 
these "revelations" are not "to be subjected" to scripture or reason. 
This is fact — as well as argument ! What a paralysis of mind does this 
system inspire ! What miserable credulity does it demand ! Barclay 
is " no imitator and admirer of the school-men, but an opposer and de- 
spiser of them as such; by whose labor," says he, "I judge the christian 
religion to be so far from being bettered, that it is rather destroyed." 

And this is an inspired judgment, remember. No wonder that he 
deprecates " examination " and all learning that is equal to it. Having 
utterly perverted Christianity, he has reasons for degrading the wisdom 
that could expose his deeds and manifest his darkness. Let christians 
value learning ; and make it, in its place, a part of their religion ! 
They are recreant to Christianity, if they dishonor that philosophy, 
which is not u falsely so called." I bless "the Father of lights" for 
" the good and perfect gifts" of sound learning and true science — and 
value them religiously and for Christ's sake, more than in any other re- 
lation incomparably : and am indebted, by the rule of contraries, to 
Quakerism, in a sort, fbr x my deep conscientious estimate of their im- 
mense subsidiary value. O that all christians were sufficiently wise to 
abhor ignorance as they ought, and cultivate its genuine opposite de- 
voutly and universally ! For myself, I know enough to feel the value 
of learning ; and much more to feel, to my dying day, distressingly, the 
defects of my own attainments. 

51. If any doubt it, let him examine the following scriptures and 
digest their common scope ; Numb. 23 : 16. 24 : 2-4, 15-24. 31 : 8. 
Josh. 13 : 22. 24 : 9, 10. Micah, 6:5. 2 Pet. 2 : 15, 16. Jude, 11. 
Rev. 2 : 14. 1 Sam. 10 : 9-12. 28 : 5, 6-25. 31 : 4. 1 John, 3 : 15. 
1 Kings, 13 : 20-22. John, 11 : 49-53. Matt. 7 : 21-23. John, 6 : 70, 
71. 1 Cor. 13 : 2. Remembering that the word charity ought to have 
been translated love, wherever it occurs in the New Testament. 

52. Errors on the subject of the influences of the Spirit are multiform ; 
and not confined to any one aspect, or monopolized by one description of 
men. It may be well here to state some sentiments that have their re- 
spective advocates, and which, it is thought, may easily be proved erro- 



676 

neous — some of them dreadfully erroneous. We will state, however, 
in positive form, the views we deem correct, and the opposite of which 
will show the errors to which we refer. 

1. There is no proper miracle in these times connected with them 
or to be expected from them: the same is true of inspiration, strictly 
such. 

2. Miraculous influence or inspiration is not nobler and to be preferred 
to that which mainly sanctifies and cleanses the soul as the ' ; living 
temple" of God. 

3. They are not with generations, as such ; but with individuals. 

4. They are not given to saints alone, or to the elect alone ; but to 
all men who hear the gospel. Were all the antediluvians, or the hear- 
ers of the protomartyT, saints ? 

5. They are not independent of tt the word of God.'' which is ever 
"the sword of the Spirit:" as if the agent and the action were to be 
affirmed, in exclusion of the uniform manner and the known instrument 
of his wor ing in all. We know of no- such influence, except in what 
may be called the natural and universal energy* of God — to which abso- 
lutely we have no moral relation. Mediately, it is our privilege and 
our duty to believe it, as a doctrine of the word of God. 

6. They are not to be identified -with what is purposed and effectual 
— with the executed "'purpose of God according to election:'-' as if with 
them we are certainly saved : as if one could in no sense be -made par- 
taker of the Holy Ghost » even, and perish. Heb. 6 : 4. Matt. 13 : 20, 21 . 
2 Pet. 2 : 1. 20-22. The things are twain and to be distinguished — as 
often they are not. 

7. They are not general only; but special also: these are as and 
when the influences take hold of an individual ; as distinguished from 
others that affect the subject little or not at all. Still, special influence 
must be in a given degree powerful or it will be resisted fatally : for spe- 
cial and saving influences are 'not always identified in the event, how- 
ever they may be in general nature. 

8. They are^not irresistible. The error results from confounding 
them with the purposes of God. after misconceiving their nature. (1) 
Sinners resist them notoriously. (2) So do saints in some respects, every 
day. Will any christian deny this in his own case 1 (3) They are 
resistible in their very nature, even when not resisted. They were 
better said in such case to be effectual ; because they then secure the 
event, because they were fat ali zing otherwise, and because this is about 
all that orthodoxy means. It is also, I think, the usage and the meaning- 
of scripture. (4) I know not what beside can be so easily resisted as 
the influence of the Spirit ! such delicacy, tenderness, refinement, holi- 
ness 3 and cordiality, combined, on the one part: with such gro= = 



677 

presumption, instability, and impurity, on the other. The Bible no where 
represents them as irresistible; as might be shown. 

9. They are not physical or mechanical, instead of moral and spiritu- 
al, in their nature. Some theologues identify their error here — angrily 
enough — with orthodoxy. 

10. We need not be immediately and always conscious of them : the 
idea is enthusiastical, or rather fanatical and false — as well as very ruin- 
ous. Many a man under the influence of the Spirit knows not what is 
the matter with him, and is sensible only of — moral wretchedness or 
some other revealed truth. The Spirit brings us to honor heartily his 
own word. 

11. Internal sensation is not to govern us, or our feelings to be our 
leaders — instead of being led and governed by " the words which the 
Holy Ghost teacheth." We are to walk neither by internal nor exter- 
nal sensation — but by faith; and the word of God is our highest rule al- 
ways. Wo to the man who, inverting the proper symmetry of his be- 
ing, allows feelings to control him in religion or — almost — in any thing 
else! 

I; 12. Their genuine fruit or result is identified with all the moral ex- 
cellence or evangelical holiness ever found in ransomed men. 

13. Their mere restraining power, however vast or excellent it ma}*- 
be in certain aspects, infers not grace in the heart of its subject. Gra- 
cious affections are spontaneous, positive, free, happy, joyous, and com- 
paratively unrestrained. 

14. They are in any wise absolutely necessary to salvation. Are not 
regeneration, sanctification, illumination, necessary ? 

15. We are not passive under their action — when all their efficacy 
consists in actuating us in goodness ! Not Friends only have made 
this mistake ! I have some reason for knowing that passivity doctrines 
are not the legitimate progeny of truth. 

16. We need not wait for them. In fact they are waiting for us — 
and the waiting system on our part is compounded only of false views, 
contracted thoughts, and disobedient feelings, combining for an excuse 
in sin ! The waiting system is ordinarily subverted before conversions or 
revivals ensue. 

17. They are not necessary to make us accountable, or necessary to 
accountableness. They may increase, not constitute, our accountable- 
ness. We are accountable absolutely and universally, perfectly and 
eternally. 

18. They are not given to reveal new truths; but to illumine our 
minds and vivify our feelings, by faith, toward old, fully revealed, and 
well known ones. 

19. They are not given to inspire our actions, or preclude <nn \ 



678 

lance or prudence or responsibility in the "ordering of our affairs with 
discretion." 

20. They are not given independently of the means of grace ; or, 
otherwise than in connection with them, and in proportion ordinarily to 
their purity and due improvement; or, as if involving contrariety, in- 
stead of coincidence, with them. They honor those means as their le- 
gitimate conductors; and every christian needs to be "educated in 
righteousness," in a way of child-like trust and duty attending on them ; 
expecting God to meet us in his ways and lead us in his paths ; being 
constituted " righteous before God, walking in all the commandments 
and ordinances of the Lord blameless." Isaiah, 64 : 5. Exod. 20 : 24. 
" The unity of the Spirit " means his consistency or identity with him- 
self, and the homogeneousness of all his proper influences. The reveal- 
ed system is one ; He hath inspired it; and " the fruit of the Spirit " in 
us conforms to that unity and " keeps" it. 

53. In all respects and at all hazards. 

54. No recognition of its existence in the title page. 

55. In New England, says Cotton Mather in his " Magnalia," the 
Quakers were punished, "non qua errones, sed qua turbones," for what 
they did, not what they taught, by the magistracy : and among other 
offences of intolerable abomination, which they practised against the 
peace and decency of the commonwealth, the pious nudity of females, 
like the naked goddess of Reason worshipped in revolutionary France, 
or the miserable lupercalians of Rome, was conspicuous. Mather justly 
condemns their capital punishment by the civil authorities ; though the 
instances were few and in circumstances of provocation singularly high ; 
but insists on their tumultuary proceedings, and inspired obstinacy in 
" crying against" all authority of the laws, as deserving and as abso- 
lutely requiring the intervention of the magistrates. " I would also en- 
treat the world,'' says that excellent and learned man, " that they would 
not be too ready to receive all stories told by the Quakers about their 
New England persecution ; because the Quakers have in print com- 
plained of such an one upon two women of their sect, who came stark 
naked as ever they were born into our public assemblies, and they 
were {baggages that they were !) adjudged unto the whipping-post for 
that piece of demlism?' 1 The same scene was acted, with equal inspi- 
ration, (as Mosheim and other writers also assert,) in Old England, how 
often I know not ; Fox himself (and all Friends have to sanction and 
must defend it) being the underwriter of the history. He charges it all 
on the agency of God, who, he says, inspired it ! These are his words : 
" The Lord made one to go naked among you, a figure [a figure in- 



deed !] of thy nakedness, and of your nakedness, and as a sign amongst 
you, before your destruction cometh ; that you might see you were 
naked and not covered, with the truth." I have no doubt that all this 
belongs legitimately to the 'orthodox' system, and may result from it 
again. Such things, generally such, that is, grotesque symbolical ac- 
tions and " figures," made each " for a sign," in some conspicuous place 
or august presence, were common among them in the seventeenth cen- 
tury. Many more specimens might be given, and many authors quoted, 
I have reason to think that the spectacle of naked females, to be piously 
looked at " for a sign," was often repeated, and in a sort familiarized, 
in the old country, before " that^piece of devilism" was repeated in the 
new. Says Fox, " Some have been moved [no doubt — moved'] to go 
naked in their streets, in the other power's days, [meaning Cromwell's.] 
and since, [i. e. it was all along common in the days of either power,] as 
signs of their nakedness ; and have declared amongst them, ' That God 
would strip them of their hypocritical professions, and make them as 
bare and naked as they were.' But, instead of considering it, they have 
frequently whipped, or otherwise abused them ; and sometimes impri- 
soned them." Terrible magistrates these ! Where was their tolera- 
tion? their charity, their faith, their regard for tender consciences, or 
their respect for inspired actions and the fair sex ? There is reason to 
fear however that Friends themselves have degenerated, very conside- 
rably, since these pure and spiritual times ! Very few modern female 
preachers are favored with such inspiration " for a sign," and few per- 
haps would be found sufficiently faithful to make the demonstration. Ah ! 
this worldly refinement ! But I would not presumptuously decide against 
them. I have witnessed myself enough to think they can do almost any 
thing — when inspired. The moving of inspiration is the very soul of 
the orthodoxy of their system — though they will little thank me for 
telling the truth as it is in this publication. 

56. In respect to a pre-eminently stupid calumny that " Friends be- 
lieve " quite extensively, concerning a conspiracy in the Presbyterian 
denomination, to unite Church and State, and all that, I can only say, 
being about as deep in the plot as Dr. Green himself or Dr. Ely even, 
that we should all utterly despair of accomplishing the important object 
during the present century, were it not for one circumstance — which I 
feel some hesitancy in evulgating! But it is truth, J know; and 
hence, without consulting one of my fellow conspirators, or divulging my 
present purpose to any human being, I will — I think — just write it. here, 
come what may; and say with Pilate, "what I have written, I have 
written." Take it then. We do not despair of the enterprize, be- 
cause — we cannot; for it never had, and never can have, any in- 



660 

tfcPTio.N or existence ! Presbyterians would have more to lose and less 
to gain, than any other sect probably by such adulteration ! Any man 
who wishes more information on the subject may call at my house at his 
leisure — any time after the 29th of February. 1833 : and in the mean 
time I would refer him to the comuhujiion of the Presbyterian church; 
Confession of Faith, chap. 23. and Form of Government, chap. 1. or, if 
this should not satisfy his deep patriotic suspicions, I refer him. for a full 
exposition, and a thorough eclaircissernent, and a most convincing de- 
monstration, of the whole-naat?er. to the infallible showings and guid- 
ings and leadings and dreamings especially — of the inwctr^d light! 
since it, as Fox says. ;; hath dominion over all and deceives nobody."-" 

57. Rt. Rev. Chas. P. M'llvaine, D. D. in his Evidences of Chris- 
tianity. 

58. Dr. Campbell's translation ; the degree of the darkness, as total, 
is plainly the sense of the text. 

o9. See the learned reasoning of Jones on the Canon of the N. T.— 
a very valuable work ! 

60. The work done, irrespective of the motive. 

61. This was written previous to the schism, when Friend Hicks was 
living and prosperous. It is not at present — far from it, I am persuad- 
ed — wholly without application ! 

62. To this there are some exceptions, (perhaps many to me un- 
known.) who, as such, had been more complete and mighty, if their 
doctrinal views of the nature and relations of the atonement had 
been thorough and discriminating. Among these I am happy to name 
our truly venerable and excellent late countryman, Lindley Mur- 
ray. In his i; Compendium of religious faith and practice ;' : in his 
numerous and useful compilations ; in his private writings inserted in his 
" Memoirs :' ; and in his constant experience and conversation : to say 
nothing of his long and most exemplary snnerings as an imprisoned 
invalid: he so honored the LORD JESUS CHRIST and his 
glorious atonement, that I feel singular freedom and pleasure, 
uniting with the popular voice of two hemispheres, in acknowledg- 
ing, as the peerless crown to the many accomplishments of a highly 
finished character, that the title of christian belongs to him. Would 
to God that every Friend, and every baptized person, were equally en- 
lightened and sincere ! While I really reverence and love his me- 
an 1 am one of thousands whom his publications have benefit- 9 

ed. and have much reason tenderly to esteem in the Lord several of his 
honored relatives in this city ;. while I know that he inculcated too much 
sound truth, and elevated the standard of orthodoxy too near its proper 



681 

altitude, to be very acceptable in his doctrinal influence to Friends general- 
ly : I am compelled to record my regret that he did not proceed farther • 
that he did not avow the paramount authority of the scriptures as the 
word of God, with all the consequent obligations and duties of such 
"a good confession •" and my conviction that the reliquiae of his Qua- 
kerism constituted a real and even a great defect in his otherwise exalt- 
ed and very amiable character. Quakerism would be still wrong and 
false, if every one] of its nominal members were — in spite of it — as 
sound and christian. His many redeeming excellencies, however, form 
a capital that may well sustain (as few others could) the brunt of the 
allegation in our impartial estimate. I could not do justice to my own 
sense of duty were I to say less : and great is the joy of my soul in hoping 
to meet all the pious dead in the eternal world, and in that palace of 
"light ineffable" where "the spirits of just men are made perfect," as 
well as — through the blood of the Lamb — admitted and forever glorified 
together. 

The compendium of Mr. Murray I take to be, every way, one of the 
most worthy documents I ever saw from a member of the society. Its 
simple classic excellence of diction, constitutes not at all its highest 
claim — it is generally so clear and sound in its matter! Still, I object 
to it; (1) that it is so wary in not asserting the supremacy of the scrip- 
tures : and (2) that its other defects, resulting from that prime one, are 
such and in detail so many. If my own father, or any nearer relative, 
were the subject of animadversion here, I could not suppress or qualify 
this censure ! — or record it with scarcely more anguish of heart ! And 
as for the praise — it is wholly founded on the recognition of qualities de- 
rived from Christianity, as contradistinguished from Quakerism ; quali- 
ties that have rendered the compendium unacceptable and useless, where 
it was designed to be especially adapted and serviceable ; qualities that 
have commended their subject to the esteem of christians everywhere, 
not more than they have discommended him to many of his own de- 
nomination. 

63. With the anniversary abominations of heathenism — sol et annus — 
was its known and base and proudly pompous original : and much the 
same could be said of myriads of other excellent and even holy words. 

Solemnes turn forte dapes et tristia dona 

Ante urbem in luco, &c. 

Annua vota tamen solemnesque or dine pompas 

Exsequerer, strueremque suis altaiia donis. — Vuu;. 

64. Pythagoras divided the doctrines of his dogmatism into two 
classes: the exoteric, which were publicly avouched and inculcated; 
and the esoteric, which were entrusted to the initiated alone. I do not 

86 



682 

neai by this allusion to the sage of Crotona and the father ot 

dogmatic philosophy, that Friei ids resemble him in all his errors, or that 

practise systematic leg :n of one code of principles for the 

nation and another tor the clan : but :. thai soedc ben sages see, 

rmetimes confess to each other, certain :raths, of whose exoteric 
currency they would not be particularly ambitious. Any usage of theirs, 
vfaich seems .: me to be a limb of their system and properly no limb or 

. :er of Christ, I think it just to bring into the anima4ver5::„ : 
community. 

rsullius addictus jurare in verba magis:ri, — H:?. 

To no dogmatic master am I sworn ; 
To think and act. a freeman, was I born. 

Tiiere :s me hidden :~e?.ture of their system on which I ~:ght volu- 
minously enlarge — not so much the mystic, as the mythic or fabulous 
chara::e:. Then old men,asweB is ■ old wives," have K fables 
the marvellous, as "a seconda: yn ale" almost a s: ore of them. These 
they relate and interchange, with very placid satisfaction, in selec: :._■- 
cftes :.round the fire of a winter's evening : while the younger, with 
■• ductile minds" intent, listen, wonder, believe, and become edified in 
their turn to — transmit the precious treasure to their heirs of a coming 
generation. These goodish stories are very entertaining, romancing if 
not quixotic — only that it is so spiritual and so inspired and so fresh in 
the experience of Friends, that " the truth " in compare n :s plan 
and practically disgraced — 

Loses diseonntenanc'd and like folly shows. 

this way ley illustrate, manifest, and enforce "what Friends be- 
live," more impressively than "truth and soberness" could ever affect 
them. I might almost compose a distinct volume of Quaker mythology, 
from notes and my own memory: recollecting store at least of quite 
interesting stories, all luciferous and tributary to the interior light with 
.digious efficacy and fe ais, Their stories seem all true — to those 
who :hink it s carnal reasoning 5 to apply the known laws : evidence: 
and the inference is hence all c in the ligl . veiy sincere, and no veary 
badlogic either, that — the: : syste k They believe it : and so did 

their fathers before them, who knew when and where it happened and 
all about it : and their children believe it in their turn, and transmit the 

. .formation to their children, and so on progressively j — hile, 



683 

like old wine, it continually improves by time and travel. All this, and 
a thousand other things of the sort, result, I think, from the system. 

Mobilitate viget, viresque acquirit eundo. — Virg. 

By motion increasing, it prospers and grows ; 
New vigor acquires and new speed as it goes ; 
Believed and rehearsed, till each trusts it and knows : 
But tells it to Friends — since, why should they to foes ? 

65. The italicising is all his. 

66. Since writing the above, I have received from a respectable hand 
the following bill of exhibited abuse in England, which I am as willing 
as any man in the world to denounce and expose. Where the kingdom 
of Christ is secularized, subordinated to the mere ends of intriguing 
statesmen, and made a mighty w T heel in the machinery of political 
oppression, I say with any others — it is Christianity no longer: no more 
of it ! Let its end come ! Religion can best flourish and protect the 
state, when left free and independent of all such perilous and polluting 
influence. If God will not uphold Christianity, let it fall ! Only spare 
it from the embrace in which it perishes ; from the communion that is 
its dishonor ; from the ignoble and rickety supports that prevent a safer 
basis and portend a dreadful fall ! 

It is one of the hand-bills that were circulated through the kingdom 
by thousands, during the late pendency of the spirit-stirring question of 
reform. I would suggest a thirteenth reason — Because the church is 
not the state, and the state is not the church ; and since God hath not 
joined them together, it is lawful for man to put them asunder. What 
a horrid misnomer, to call a collection of worldly and greedy aspirants, 
the church ! as they often do, meaning ultimately themselves alone. I 
know there is " salt " in the church of England ; possibly even in some 
of its high places, where the King of heaven is duly honored as its 
proper and only legitimate head. 

TWELVE REASONS why Dissenters should not be compelled to 
pay church rates, tythes, or in any way to contribute toward the support 
of the Establishment. 
Because — 

1. The cause of God and truth ought to be supported by the volunta- 
ry contributions of its adherents — and is disgraced when compulsory 
measures are adopted. 

2. It is compelling Dissenters to support a system which they eon 
scientiously view as unscriptural. 

3. Dissenters derive no commensurate advantage in return from the 
Church. 



684 

4. Dissenters bear all the expenses connected with their places of 
worship without asking or receiving any aid from the Church. 

5. There is nothing more fair, equitable, and unobjectionable, than that 
every denomination of professing christians should meet its own expen- 
diture. 

6. The Church has resources in herself ampty sufficient to defray all 
her pecuniary engagements. 

7. It is taking from Dissenters an amount which they might much 
more profitably employ in the cause of christian philanthropy. 

8. It is an infringement of religious liberty, and in direct violation of 
the divine mandate, " As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also 
to them likewise." How would Churchmen approve a compulsory tax 
for the support of Dissenting places of worship ? 

9. The remission of this claim by Churchmen, would efface one foul 
blot which now attaches to the Establishment. 

10. Many Churchmen see the impolicy and injustice of thus taxing 
Dissenters, and are prepared to concede the point 

11. Dissenters now equal, if they do not exceed in number, Church- 
men. 

12. On no principle of honor, justice, or honesty, can the exaction be 
defended, and therefore reform here must ensue. 

On a moderate calculation, the washing of surplices costs this nation 
annually, upwards of £13,000 ! A considerable proportion of this 
amount is exacted from Dissenters. Might not the whole be much more 
beneficially appropriated? 

" There are probably in England, Scotland, and Ireland, not including 
the Roman Catholics, not less than 8,000 congregations of Dissenters ; 
which build their own places of worship ; which sustain their own minis- 
ters ; which support their own 'colleges, to the number of nearly 20 ; 
which conduct the tuition of perhaps 7,000 Sunday Schools ; and which 
expend nearly £150,000 in support of Foreign Missions." 

67. But in other ways and in thousands of forms, can they be nobly 
useful and excellent auxiliaries to the ministry. They can sometimes 
speak well and effectually, as also eloquently, in private circles and to 
individuals, for their Master's honor; witness the lady mentioned page 
16 of this volume; They can subserve most valuably the usefulness of 
others. For we need '•' helps." as well as " governments," in the church 
of God. Thus Priscilla, the beloved Persis, Junia and Phebe, Euodias 
and Syntyche, with other :; honorable women not a few," helped the 
apostles usefully and acceptably ; as Paul says of one of them to the 
church : " Receive her in the Lord, as becometh saints, and assist her 
in whatsoever business she hath need of you ; for she hath been a sue- 



685 

cover of many and of myself also." An honorable testimony — which 
I could bear in favor of many, who have in different ways assisted me 
in the Lord ; and of one (now a member of my own church and the 
wife of one of its honored eldership) who, when I was " perplexed, but 
not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed," 
so kindly and wisely, in the love of Christ, " ministered unto me of her 
substance," Luke, 8 : 3, and in other ways encouraged me in God, when 
I first knew him, that my heart will never forget its obligations to Mrs. 
Sarah Sayrs — and, if it were equally pertinent, I should have previ- 
ously named her excellent husband, Mr. Isaac Sayrs ; both remembered 
by many with similar sentiments and feelings. " The Lord grant unto" 
them and their large household, that they " may find mercy of the Lord 
in that day !" However little it may be in my power to compensate 
their generous and christian kindness, I rejoice to think that " my God 
shall supply all their need, according to his riches in glory by Christ 
Jesus." And to many other friends indeed, do I extend the hope and 
the invocation that God would crown them with grace and glory, in his 
own perfect kingdom. 

68. On one occasion a dumb animal of the sex prophecied " with 
man's voice." Shall we argue here from a rare exception, to a gene- 
ral rule of prophetic investiture, and instate an order of such officers in 
the church 1 I know of no other instance in the scriptures, where in- 
spiration ever authorized their preaching : and have no idea that a 
solitary precedent of the sort ought to be pleaded in favor of their regu- 
lar ministration. Numb. 22 : 25. 

i 69. Ventum erat ad limen, cum virgo, Poscere fata 

Tempus, ait: Deus, ecce, Deus ! Cui taliafanti 

Ante fores, subito non vultus, non colour unus, 
[ Non cornptae mansere comae: sed pectus anhelum, 

Et rabie fera corda tument ; majorque videri, 

Nee mortale sonans : afflata est numine quando 

Jam propiore Dei. — Viug. 

Their inspiration often shows some of the contorsions and gesticula- 
tions of the Cumaean sibyl — shivering, transported, tremulous, unnatural 
in voice, as if borne along by a tide of irresistible influence, in spite of 
themselves. It is heathenism ! How " gross " are their conceptions 
who see no sin in forging the signature of God ; declaring one's self 
inspired — when it is not so ! 

70. See note 55. 

71. I have taken these lines chiefly from the 'Universal passion,' by 
Dr. Young. Those referring to the nudity of females "for a sign," 1 
have mainly supplied, (referring to note 55,) for the following reasons 



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